WarfieH  Library 

45,q'10 


THE  ATTEMPT  TO  SUBJUGATE  A PEOPLE  STRIVING  FOR  FREEDOM. 
NOT  THE  AMERICAN  SOLDIER,  RESPONSIBLE  FOR  CRU- 
ELTIES IN  THE  PHILIPPINE  ISLANDS. 


SPEECH 

OF 


OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 


IN’  THE 

SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


May  22,  1902. 


W.A.SIIi:NrGTOI^. 

1902. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/attempttosubjugaOOhoar 


SPEECH 

OP 

HON,  GEOEGE  E.  HOAR. 


The  Senate,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  havin<j  under  consideration 
the  bill  (S.  22i»5)  temporarily  to  provide  for  the  administration  of  the  affairs 
of  civil  government  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  for  other  purposes — 

Mr.  HOAR  said: 

Mr.  President:  I have  something  to  say  upon  the  pending  bill. 
I will  say  it  as  briefly  and  as  compactly  as  I may.  We  have  to 
deal  with  a territory  10,000  miles  away,  1.200  miles  in  extent,  con- 
taining 10,000,000  people.  A ma.jority  of  the  Senate  think  that 
people  are  under  the  American  flag  and  lawfully  subject  to  oirr 
authority.  We  are  not  at  war  vuth  them  or  with  anj'body.  The 
country  is  in  a condition  of  profound  peace  as  well  as  of  unex- 
ampled pro.sperity.  The  world  is  in  profound  peace,  except  in  one 
quarter,  in  South  Africa,  where  a handful  of  republicans  are  fight- 
ing for  their  independence,  and  have  been  doing  better  fighting 
than  has  been  done  on  the  face  of  the  earth  since  Thermopyl®, 
or  certainly  since  Bannockburn. 

Yet  the  Filipinos  have  a right  to  call  it  war.  They  claim  to  be  a 
people  and  to  be  fighting  for  their  rights  as  a people.  The  Sena- 
tor from  Ohio  [Mr.  Forakee]  admits  that  there  is  a people  there, 
although  he  says  they  are  not  one  people,  but  there  are  several. 
But  we  can  not  be  at  war  under  the  Constitution  without  an  act 
of  Congress. 

We  are  not  at  war.  We  made  peace  with  Spain  on  the  14th 
day  of  February,  1809.  Congress  has  never  declared  war  with 
the  people  of  the  Philippine  Islands.  The  President  has  never 
asserted  nor  usurped  the  power  to  do  it.  We  are  only  doing  on  a 
large  scale  exactly  what  we  have  done  at  home  within  a few 
years  past,  where  the  military  forces  of  the  United  States  have 
been  called  ofit  to  suppress  a riot  or  a tumult  or  a lawless  assem- 
bly, too  sti'ong  for  the  local  authorities.  You  have  the  same 
right  to  administer  the  water  torture,  or  to  hang  men  by  the 
thumbs,  to  extort  confession,  in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  You  have 
the  same  right  to  do  it  in  Cleveland  or  Pittsburg  or  at  Colorado 
Springs  as  you  have  to  do  it  within  the  Philippine  Islands.  I 
have  the  same  right  as  an  American  citizen  or  an  American  Sen- 
ator to  discuss  the  conduct  of  any  military  officer  in  the  Philip- 
phie  Islands  that  I have  to  discuss  the  conduct  of  a marshal  or  a 
constable  or  a captain  in  Pittsburg  or  in  Cleveland  if  there  were 
a labor  riot  there. 

That  duty  I mean  to  perform  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  fear- 
lessly as  becomes  an  American  citizen,  and  honestly  as  becomes 
an  American  Senator. 

But  I have  an  anterior  duty  and  an  anterior  right  to  talk  about 
the  action  of  the  American  Senate,  both  in  the  past  and  in  the 
present,  for  which,  as  no  man  wiU  deny,  I have  my  full  share  of 
personal  respon.sibility. 

The  Senator  from  Ohio,  in  his  very  brilliant  and  forcible  speech, 
5S98  3 


4 


which  I heard  with  delight  and  instruction , said  that  we  were 
bound  to  restore  order  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  we  can  not 
leave  them  till  that  should  be  done.  He  said  we  were  bound  to 
keep  the  faith  we  pledged  to  Spain  in  the  treaty,  and  that  we 
were  bound,  before  we  left,  to  see  that  secured.  He  said  we  were 
bound,  especially,  to  look  out  for  the  safety  of  the  Filipinos  who 
had  been  our  friends,  and  that  we  could  not,  in  honor,  depart 
until  that  should  be  made  secure. 

All  that,  Mr.  President,  is  true.  So  far  as  I know,  no  man  has 
doubted  it.  But  these  things  are  not  what  we  are  fighting  for; 
not  one  of  them.  There  never  was  a time  when,  if  'sve  had  de- 
clared that  we  only  were  there  to  keep  faith  with  Spain,  and 
that  we  only  were  tliere  to  restore  order,  that  we  were  only  there 
to  see  that  no  friend  of  ours  should  sulTer  at  tlie  hands  of  any 
enemy  of  ours,  that  the  war  would  not  have  ended  in  that 
moment. 

You  are  fighting  for  sovereignty.  You  are  fighting  for  the 
principle  of  eternal  dominion  over  that  people,  and  that  is  the 
only  question  in  issue  in  the  conflict.  W e said  in  the  case  of 
Cuba  that  she  had  a right  to  be  free  and  independent.  We  af- 
firmed in  the  Teller  resolution,  I think  ^vithout  a negative  voice, 
that  we  would  not  invade  that  right  and  would  not  meddle  with 
her  territory  or  anything  that  belonged  to  her.  That  declaration 
was  a declaration  of  peace  as  well  as  of  righteousness;  and  we 
made  the  treaty,  so  far  as  concerned  Cuba,  and  conducted  the 
war  and  have  conducted  ourselves  ever  since  on  that  theory — that 
we  had  no  right  to  interfere  with  her  independence;  that  we  had 
no  right  to  her  territory  or  to  anything  that  was  Cuba’s.  So  we 
only  demanded  in  the  treaty  that  Spain  should  hereafter  let  her 
alone.  If  you  had  done  to  Cuba  as  you  have  done  to  the  Philip- 
pine Islands,  who  had  exactly  the  same  right,  you  would  be  at 
this  moment,  in  Cuba,  just  where  Spain  was  when  she  excited 
the  indignation  of  the  civilized  world  and  we  compelled  her  to 
let  go.  And  if  you  had  done  in  the  Philippines  as  you  did  in 
Cuba,  you  would  be  to-day  or  would  soon  be  in  those  islands  as 
you  are  in  Cuba. 

But  you  made  a totally  different  declaration  about  the  Philip- 
pine Islands.  You  undertook  in  the  treaty  to  acquire  sovereignty 
over  her  for  yourself,  which  that  people  denied.  You  declared 
not  only  in  the  treaty,  but  in  many  public  utterances  in  this 
Chamber  and  elsewhere,  that  you  had  a right  to  buy  sovereignty 
with  money,  or  to  treat  it  as  the  spoils  of  war  or  the  booty  of  bat- 
tle. The  moment  you  made  that  declaration  the  Filipino  people 
gave  you  notice  that  they  treated  it  as  a declaration  of  war.  So 
your  generals  reported,  and  so  Aguinaldo  expressly  declared. 
The  President  sent  out  an  order  to  take  forcible  possession,  by 
military  power,  of  those  islands.  General  Otis  tried  to  suppress 
it,  but  it  leaked  out  at  Iloilo  through  General  MiUer.  General 
Otis  tried  to  suppress  it  and  substitute  that  they  should  have  all 
the  rights  of  the  most  favored  provinces.  He  stated  that  he  did 
that  &cause  he  knew  the  proclamation  would  bring  on  war. 
And  the  next  day  Aguinaldo  covered  the  walls  of  Manila  with  a 
proclamation  stating  what  President  McKinley  had  done,  and 
saying  that  if  that  were  persisted  in  he  and  his  people  would  fight, 
and  General  MacArthur  testified  that  Aguinaldo  represented  the 
entire  people.  So  you  deliberately  made  up  the  issue  for  a fight 
for  dominion  on  one  side  and  a fight  for  liberty  on  the  other. 

Then  when  you  had  ratified  the  treaty  you  voted  down  the  res- 
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5 


ohition  in  the  Senate,  known  as  tlie  Bacon  resolution,  declaring 
the  right  of  that  people  to  independence,  and  you  passed  the  Mc- 
Enery  I’csolution,  which  declared  that  you  meant  to  dispose  of 
those  islands  as  should  be  for  the  interest  of  the  United  States. 
That  was  the  origin  of  the  war,  if  it  be  war.  That  is  what  the 
war  is  all  about,  if  it  be  war;  and  it  is  idle  for  my  brilliant  and 
ingeniotis  friend  from  Ohio  to  undertake  to  divert  this  issiie  to  a 
contest  on  our  part  to  enable  us  to  keep  faith  with  our  friends 
among  the  Filipinos,  or  to  restore  order  there,  or  to  carry  out  the 
provisions  of  the  treaty  with  Spain. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  when  you  determined  to  resort  to  force  for 
that  purpose,  you  took  upon  yourself  every  natural  consequence 
of  that  condition.  The  natural  result  of  a conflict  of  arms  be- 
tween a people  coming  out  of  subjection  and  a highly  civilized 
people — one  weak  and  the  other  strong,  with  all  the  powers  and 
resoiirces  of  civilization — is  inevitably,  as  everybody  knows,  that 
there  will  be  cruelty  on  one  side  and  retaliation  by  cruelty  on  the 
other.  Yoir  knew  it  even  before  it  happened,  as  well  as  you  know 
it  now  that  it  has  happened;  and  the  responsibility  is  yours. 

If,  in  a conflict  between  a people  fighting  for  independence  and 
liberty,  being  a weak  people,  and  a people  striving  to  deprive 
them  of  their  independence  and  liberty,  being  a strong  people, 
always,  if  the  nature  of  man  remains  unchanged,  the  war  is  con- 
verted in  the  end  into  a conflict  in  which  bushwhacking,  treach- 
ery, and  cruelty  have  to  be  encountered,  the  responsibility  is 
with  the  men  who  made  the  war.  Conflicts  betw’eeu  white  races 
and  brown  races  or  red  races  or  black  races,  between  superior 
races  and  inferior  races,  are  always  cruel  on  both  sides,  and  the 
men  who  decree  with  full  notice  that  such  conflict  shall  take  place 
are  the  men  on  whom  the  responsibility  rests.  When  Aguinaldo 
said  he  did  not  desire  the  conflict  to  go  on,  and  that  it  went  on 
against  his  wish,  he  was  told  by  our  general  that  he  would  not 
parley  with  him  without  total  submission.  My  friend  from  Wis- 
consin declared  in  the  Senate  that  we  would  have  no  talk  with 
men  with  arms  in  their  hands,  whether  we  were  right  or  wrong. 
The  responsibility  of  everything  that  has  happened  since,  which 
he  must  have  foreseen  if  he  knew  anything  of  history  and  human 
nature,  rests  upon  him  and  the  men  who  acted  with  him. 

We  can  not  get  rid  of  this  one  fact,  we  can  not  escape  it,  and 
we  can  not  flinch  from  it.  You  chose  war  instead  of  peace.  You 
chose  force  instead  of  conciliation,  with  full  notice  that  every- 
thing that  has  happened  since  would  happen  as  a conseqiience  of 
your  decision.  Had  you  made  a declaration  to  Aguinaldo  that 
you  would  respect  their  title  to  independence,  and  that  all  you 
desired  was  order  and  to  fulfill  the  treaty  and  to  protect  your 
friends,  you  would  have  disarmed  that  people  in  a moment.  I 
believe  there  never  has  been  a time  since  when  a like  declaration 
made  by  this  Chamber  alone,  but  certainly  made  by  this  Cham- 
ber and  the  other  House,  with  the  approval  of  the  President, 
would  not  have  ended  this  conflict  and  prevented  all  these  horrors. 

Instead  of  that  gentlemen  talked  of  the  wealth  of  the  Philip- 
pine Islands,  and  alxiut'the  advantage  to  our  trade.  They  sought 
to  dazzle  our  eyes  with  nuggets  of  other  men’s  gold,  ^nators 
declared  in  the  Senate  Chamber  and  on  the  hustings  that  the  flag 
never  shall  be  hauled  down  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  those 
of  you  who  think  otherwise  keep  silent  and  enter  no  disclaimer. 
The  Senator  from  Ohio  saj^s  our  policy  has  not  been  in  the  dark, 
but  it  has  been  a policy  published  to  the  world.  Has  it?  Has  it? 

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I ■want  to  ask,  What  was  it  which  created  the  war,  which  keeps  it 
up,  and  which  created  and  keeps  up  the  hatred,  and  -will  make 
war  break  out  again  and  again  for  centuries  to  come,  unless  hu- 
man nature  be  changed  or  be  different  in  their  bosoms  from  what 
it  is  in  oiu’s?  It  is  because  our  policy  has  not  been  published  to 
the  world.  It  is  because  you  keep  a padlock  on  your  bps. 

This  debate  for  the  last  three  years  has  contained  many  audaci- 
ties. One  thing,  however,  no  Senator  ha?  been  audacious  enough 
to  affirm,  and  that  is  that  if  he  were  a Filipmo,  as  he  is  an  Ameri- 
can, he  would  not  do  exactly,  sa-ving  only  acts  of  cruelty,  as  the 
Filipino  has  done. 

I find  myself  beset  ■with  one  difficulty  whenever  I undertake  to 
debate  this  question.  I am  to  discuss  and  denounce  what  seems 

me  one  of  the  most  foolish  and  ■wicked  chapters  in  history. 
Yet  I am  compelled  to  admit  that  the  men  who  are  responsible 
for  it  are  neither  foolish  nor  ■wicked.  On  the  contrary,  there  are 
no  men  on  the  face  of  the  earth  with  whom  on  nearly  all  other 
subjects  I am  in  general  more  in  accord,  to  whose  sound  judg- 
ment or  practical  sagacity  I am  more  willing  to  defer,  or  to  whose 
patriotism  or  humanity  I am  more  ■willing  to  commit  the  honor 
or  the  fate  of  the  Republic. 

It  may  be  that  it  is  presumption  to  act  on  my  o'wn  judgment 
against  that  of  my  valued  and  beloved  political  friends.  But  we 
do  not  settle  questions  of  righteousness  or  justice  on  any  man’s 
authority.  StiU  less  do  we  settle  them  by  a show  of  hands.  Each 
man  is  responsible  only  to  his  own  conscience,  which  is  the  only 
authority  he  must  obey.  Besides,  Mr.  President,  I have  on  my 
side  in  this  great  debate  the  fathers  of  the  Republic,  the  states- 
men who  adorned  its  first  century,  the  founders  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  every  one  of  whom  declared  and  lived  by  and  died  by 
the  doctrine  you  are  now  repudiating.  I have  also  your  o^wn 
authority,  your  o^wn  declaration,  made  only  three  years  ago,  at 
the  begiiming  of  the  Spanish  war.  When  you  declared  that  Cuba 
of  right — of  right — ought  to  be  a free  and  indei)endent  State,  and 
that  the  United  States  would  not  acquire  her  teiritory  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  war  ■with  Spain,  you  settled  as  p,  matter  of  duty  and 
of  justice  this  whole  Pliilippine  qiiestion. 

I have,' however,  at  least,  to  congratulate  my  friends  who  differ 
from  me  on  an  increased  sobriety  in  dealing  with  this  matter. 

We  are  not  flourishing  nuggets  of  gold  in  the  Senate  just  now. 
The  devil  imperialism  is  not  promising  us  all  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  and  the  glory  thereof,  if  we  will  fail  down  and  wor- 
ship him.  You  have  just  hauled  down  the  American  flag  in 
China  where  it  once  floated,  and  you  have  just  hauled  it  do^wn 
day  before  yesterday  in  Cuba  where  it  has  floated  for  three 
years. 

For  the  words,  “ interests  of  the  United  States,”  which  the 
McEnery  resolirtion  declared  were  to  determine  our  actions  in 
goveraing  these  islands,  you  substitute  in  this  bill  the  declaration 
that  “the  rights  acquired  in  the  Philippine  Islands  under  the 
treaty  with  Spain  are  to  be  administered  for  the  benefit  of  the 
inhabitants  of  those  islands.” 

Sec.  10.  Teat  all  the  property  and  rights  which  may  have  been  aeqnired 
in  the  Philippine  Islands  by  the  United  States  under  the  treaty  of  peace  with 
Spain,  18U8,  are  hereby  placed  under  the  control  of  the  government  of  the 
Philipijine  Islands,  to  be  administered  for  the  benefit  of  inhabitants  of  the 
islands. 

Sec.  7.  There  are  to  be  municipal  and  provincial  governments  as  far  and 
as  fast  as  the  governments  are  capable,  fit,  and  ready  for  the  same,  ■with  pop- 
ular representative  government 
5«)8 


7 


The  share  to  which  yon  propose  to  admit  these  people  in  your 
scheme  of  government,  is  an  admission  that  a large  number  of 
them  are  fit  for  self-government.  You  propose  for  them — to  take 
effect  in  the  near  future — a constitution,  not  very  different  from 
that  of  Canada,  where  the  Crown  of  England  appoints  the 
Governor-General,  and  the  Governor-General  appoints  the  senate, 
and  there  is  a veto  on  every  provincial  law  by  the  Governoz’- 
General,  and  a veto  on  every  law  of  the  Canadian  congress,  not 
only  by  the  Governor-General,  but  by  the  Government  at  home. 

The  Senator  from  New  Hampshire  called  a witness  the  other 
day  to  the  effect  that  evei-y  Filipino  would  take  a bribe.  Sir  Rob- 
ert Walpole  said  that  of  England.  I acquit  the  majoiity  of  the 
Senate  and  the  committee  who  report  this  bill  from  believing  the 
charge  made  by  my  lionoi'able  friend  from  New  Hampshii-e. 
They  affirm  that  there  are  many  Filipinos  who  are  sincerely  our 
friends.  They  admit,  if  I understand  them,  that  there  are  in 
those  islands  many  citizens  accomplished  and  well  educated,  law- 
yers and  merchants,  conducting  large  affairs  in  trade,  and  they 
themselves  propose  to  commit  to  these  people  at  once,  as  soon  as 
may  be,  lai’ge  powers  of  government,  retaining  for  us  little  moi'e 
than  the  power  of  a veto. 

What  you  have  been  fighting  for  all  this  time  as  your  I’ight,  if 
you  expect  to  enact  this  bill  into  law  and  to  carry  it  out  in  prac- 
tice, is  to  szibstitute  a constitution  of  your  making  for  one  of 
their  making;  to  have  a dependency,  which  is  what  you  want, 
instead  of  a I’epublic,  which  is  what  they  want;  to  have  fitness 
for  the  elective  franchise  detei-mined  by  an  authority  which  has 
its  soui’ce  10,000  miles  away,  instead  of  with  the  people  at  home; 
and  to  deny  them  independence,  even  if  they  are  fit  for  it,  so  long 
as  you  please,  without  any  regard  to  their  desire. 

This  investigation,  I suppose,  is  yet  upon  the  threshold.  Your 
chief  witnesses,  so  far,  have  been  soldiers  and  governors  who  are 
committed  to  policies  of  subjzzgation.  The  investigation  has 
been  conducted  by  a committee  of  that  way  of  thinking. 

Yet  we  have  got  already  some  pregnant  admissions,  and  some 
remai’kable  facts  have  already  come  to  light.  Governor  Taft, 
if  I understood  him,  concedes  that  nothing  so  far  indicates  that 
the  existing  policy  has  been  good  for  the  United  States.  It  is 
only  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  in  saving 
them  from  anarchy,  or  from  foreign  nations,  in  establishing 
schools  for  them,  that  ^undicates  what  you  have  done  so  far. 
What  yozz  have  done  so  far  has  been  to  get  some  few  thousand 
children  actually  at  school  in  the  whole  Philippine  dominion.  To 
get  this  result,  you  have  certainly  slain  many  times  that  number 
of  pai’ents. 

It  would  be  without  avail  to  i-epeat  in  the  Senate  to-day  what 
was  said  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  treaty,  and  afterwards  when 
you  determined  to  reduce  the  Philippine  people  by  force  to  sub- 
mission. 

What  your  fathers  said  when  they  founded  the  Republic;  the 
declarations  of  the  gz'eat  leaders  of  every  generation;  our  cen- 
tzzry  of  glorious  histoi-y , wei'e  appealed  to  in  vain.  Their  lessons 
fell  zzpon  the  ears  of  men  dazzled  by  military  glory  and  deliidous 
with  the  lust  of  conquest.  I will  not  repeat  them  now.  My  de- 
sire to-day  is  simply  to  call  attention  to  the  practical  working  of 
the  two  doctrines — the  doctrine  of  buying  sovereignty  or  con- 
quering it  in  battle,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. For  the  last  three  years  you  have  put  one  of  them  in 
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force  in  Cuba  and  the  other  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  I ask  you 
to  think  soberly  ■vrhich  method,  on  the  whole,  you  hke  better.  I 
ask  you  to  compare  the  cost  of  war  with  the  cost  of  peace,  of  jus- 
tice with  that  of  injustice,  the  cost  of  empire  -with  the  cost 
) f republican  liberty,  the  cost  of  the  way  of  America  and  the 
way  of  Europe,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence with  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  You  have  tried  both, 
I hope,  to  your  heart's  content.  But  before  I do  that  I want  to 
call  attention  to  one  important  fact  in  our  history  not  generally 
known.  It  is  very  interesting  in  its  connection  with  this  debate. 

John  Quincy  Adams,  as  everybody  knows,  was  the  father  of 
what  wo  call  the  Monroe  doctrine.  He  secured  its  adoption 
through  the  weight  of  his  great  influence,  by  a hesitating  Presi- 
dent, and  a reluctant  Cabinet.  It  is  not  so  well  known  that  he 
placed  the  Monroe  doctiane  solely  upon  the  doctrine  that  just 
governments  must  rest  upon  the  consent  of  the  governed.  That, 
he  declared  to  be  its  only  foundation,  and  that  so  founded  it  rested 
upon  the  eternal  principle  of  righteousness  and  justice. 

A thorough  examination  has  lately  been  made  by  an  accom- 
plished historical  scholar,  Mr.  Worthington  C.  Ford,  aided  by 
Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  grandson  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
of  the  unpublished  Adams  manuscripts  at  Quincy,  the  archives 
of  the  Department  of  State,  and  the  papers  of  President  Monroe, 
lately  published  by  Congress. 

I can  relate  this  story  in  a moment.  I think  it  an  important 
contribution  to  this  debate. 

Mr.  President,  I discussed  some  time  ago,  and  more  than  once, 
this  attempt  to  buy  sovereignty  with  money  of  a dispossessed  ty- 
rant, or  to  get  it  as  booty  or  spoils  of  battle.  I showed  that  it  is 
in  contradiction  of  the  great  American  doctrine  that  just  govern- 
ments rest  only  on  the  consent  of  the  governed — in  flat  contra- 
diction of  the  doctrine  on  which  this  Government  is  founded  and 
of  the  uniform  tradition  of  all  our  statesmen  from  177G  to  the 
adoption  of  the  Spanish  treaty.  I do  not  mean  to  repeat  that  ar- 
gument now.  It  was  met  by  the  affirmation  tliat  Jefferson  disre- 
garded it  when  we  bought  Louisiana,  and  that  John  Quincy 
Adams  disregarded  it  when  we  acquired  Florida,  and  that  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  disregarded  it  when  he  put  down  the  rebellion,  and 
that  Charles  Simmer  disregarded  it  when  he  urged  the  purchase 
of  Alaska. 

It  was  never  denied  th.at  we  could  acquire  territory  and  that 
we  could  govern  it  after  it  was  acquired.  Tlie  doctrine  was  that 
if  the  territory  be  inhabited  by  that  vital  and  living  being  we  call 
a people,  as  distinct  from  a few  scattered  and  unorganized  inhab- 
itants, neither  controlling  it  nor  governing  themselves,  that  peo- 
ple have  a right  to  govern  themselves  and  to  determine  their  ov.m 
destiny  after  their  own  fashion.  This  is  the  American  exposition 
of  the  law  of  nations.  Thomas  Jefferson  never  departed  from  it. 
He  regarded  the  Louisiana  Territory  as  something  not  worth  tak- 
ing. He  declared  that  it  would  not  be  inhabited  for  a thousand 
j’ears.  He  only  wanted  New  Orleans.  The  rest  of  the  Territory 
was  forced  upon  him  by  Napoleon.  There  was  no  people,  in  the 
sense  of  the  law  of  nations,  either  in  New  Orleans  or  in  the 
Louisiana  Territoiy.  There  was  no  people  there  that  could  make 
a government  or  a treaty. 

Abraham  Lincoln  put  down  the  rebellion,  because  by  his  and 
our  interpretation  of  the  Constitution  we  were  one  people  and 
not  two — to  which  doctrine  the  Southern  people  had  consented 
5298 


9 


when  they  adopted  the  Constitution;  and  besides,  if  you  had 
counted  the  whole  people,  black  and  white,  there  was  never  a 
majority  on  the  side  of  secession  in  any  single  Southern  State. 
Suirmer  again  and  again  declared  that  there  was  nothing  in 
Alaska  which  could  be  called  a people,  and  that  if  there  were  the 
United  States  would  never  be  willing  to  acquire  them  without 
their  consent;  and  that  we  would  never  take  Canada,  if  we  could 
get  it,  except  with  the  full  approbation  of  her  people.  If  my 
friends  of  the  press  or  in  the  Senate  who  still  stick  to  this  ten 
h'ondred  times  refuted  fallacy  are  not  content,  they  will  never 
be  persuaded,  though  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Quincy  Adams 
and  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Charles  Sumner  rise  from  the  dead. 

I do  not  wish  to  detain  the  Senate  by  renewing  that  debate. 
But  I wish  to  cite  a chapter  of  the  history  of  this  country,  which 
shows  that  your  present  policy  is  in  contradiction  of  the  Monroe 
doctrine,  as  it  is  in  contradiction  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. It  is  well  known  that  John  Quincy  Adams  was  the 
author  of  the  Monroe  doctrine.  He  carried  has  point  over  the 
opposition  of  the  Cabinet  and  reluctance  on  the  part  of  the  Presi- 
dent. 

When  Canning  proposed  that  the  United  States  join  England 
in  asserting  that  the  Holy  Alliance  should  not  reduce  any  South 
American  coimtry  under  the  dominion  of  Spain,  Mr.  Adams  said 
that  we  would  not  join  England,  although  she  asked  us  to  do  it. 
He  said  we  were  not  to  be  a little  cockboat  in  the  wake  of  the 
British  man-of-war.  He  counseled  the  President,  and  his  advice 
was  taken,  that  this  country  should  make  its  declaration  to 
Russia,  the  head  and  strength  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  he  put 
that  declaration  expressly  and  solely  on  the  doctilne  of  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed,  affirmed  in  our  Declaration  of  Independence. 
He  declared  that  doctrine  was  a doctrine  of  absolute  right  and 
righteousness. 

It  will  take  but  a moment  to  tell  the  story  as  it  appears  in  the 
archives  in  our  Department  of  State,  in  the  Monroe  papers  lately 
published,  in  Adams's  Diary,  and  in  the  Adams  manuscripts  at 
Quincy,  which  have  been  made  public  within  a few  days. 

In  August,  September,  and  October,  1823,  there  came  to  the 
State  Department  of  Washington  from  Mr.  Rush  dispatches  con- 
taining letters  from  Mr.  Canning.  These  letters  suggested  de- 
signs of  the  Holy  Alliance  against  the  independence  of  the  South 
American  colonies;  and  proposed  cooperation  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  against  that  alliance. 

President  Monroe  asked  the  advice  of  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr. 
Madison,  and  suggested  that  we  should  make  it  known  that  we 
.should  view  an  attack  by  the  European  powers  upon  the  colonies 
of  Spain  as  an  attack  upon  ourselves.  But  in  the  meantime  the 
Russian  minister,  Baron  Tuyll,  on  the  16th  of  October,  commu- 
nicated to  the  Secretary  of  State  a declaration  of  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  that  the  political  principles  of  that  Power  •would  not 
permit  him  to  recognize  the  independence  of  the  revolted  colonies 
of  Spain. 

Mr.  Adams  saw  and  seized  his  opportunity.  He  gave  this  ad- 
■vice  to  President  Monroe,  as  appears  by  his  diary,  on  November 
7, 1823: 

I remarked  that  the  communications  recently  received  from  the  Eussian 
minister,  Baron  Tuyll,  afforded,  as  I thought,  a very  suitable  and  convenient 
opportunity  for  ns  to  take  our  stand  against  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  at  the 
same  time  decline  the  overtures  of  Clreat  Britain.  It  would  be  more  candid 
6298 


10 


and  more  dignified  to  avow  our  principles  explicitly  to  Baron  Tuyll  than  to 
go  in  as  a cockboat  in  the  wake  of  the  British  man-of-war.  This  idea  was 
acquiesced  in  on  all  sides. 

At  the  Cabinet  meeting  of  November  15,  1823,  the  subject  was 
again  discussed. 

Letters  were  read  from  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  was  for  acceding  to  the  pend- 
ing proposal.  Mr.  Madison  was  less  decisively  pronounced,  but  thought  the 
movement  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  impelled  more  by  her  interest  than 
by  a principle  of  general  liberty.  President  Monroe  was  quite  despondent. 

Adams  proceeds: 

I soon  found  the  source  of  the  President’s  despondency  with  regard  to 
South  American  affairs.  Calhoun  is  perfectly  moonstruck  by  the  surrender 
of  Cadiz,  and  says  the  Holy  Allies,  with  10,(XX)  men,  will  restore  all  Mexico 
and  all  South  America  to  the  Spanish  dominion.  1 did  not  deny  that  they 
might  make  a temporary  impression  for  three,  four,  or  five  years,  but  I no 
more  believe  that  the  Holy  Allies  will  restore  the  Spanish  dominion  upon  the 
American  continent  than  that  Chimborazo  will  sink  beneath  the  ocean.  But, 
I added,  if  the  South  Americans  were  really  in  a state  to  be  so  easily  sub- 
dued, it  would  be  but  a more  forcible  motive  for  us  to  beware  of  involving 
ourselves  in  their  fate.  I set  this  down  as  one  of  Calhoun’s  extravaganzas. 
He  is  for  plunging  into  a war  to  prevent  that  which,  if  his  opinion  of  it  is 
correct,  we  are  utterly  unable  to  prevent.  He  is  for  embarking  our  lives 
and  fortunes  in  a ship  which  he  declares  the  very  rats  have  abandoned.  Cal- 
houn reverts  again  to  his  idea  of  giving  discretionary  power  to  our  minister 
to  accede  to  all  Canning’s  proposals,  if  neces.sary,  blit  not  otherwise.  After 
much  discussion,  I said  I thought  we  should  bring  the  whole  answer  to  Mr. 
Canning’s  proposals  to  a test  of  right  and  wrong.  Considering  the  South 
Americans  as  independent  nations,  they  themselves,  and  no  other  nation,  had 
the  right  to  dispose  of  their  condition.  We  have  no  right  to  dispose  of  them, 
either  alone  or  in  conjunction  with  other  nations.  Neither  have  any  other 
nations  the  right  of  disposing  of  them  without  their  consent.  This  principle 
will  give  us  a clue  to  answer  all  Mr.  Canning's  questions  with  candor  and 
confidence,  and  I am  to  draft  a dispatch  accordingly.  (Adams’s  Memoirs, 

p.  186.1 

Before  Mr.  Adams  prepared  the  draft,  t'wo  more  dispatches 
\vere  received  from  Rush,  dated  the  2d  and  10th  of  October,  indi- 
cating a decided  change  in  Canning's  tone,  and  almost  an  indiffer- 
ence on  his  part  to  pursue  his  project  of  united  action.  Meantime, 
there  came  a new  communication  from  Russia,  ■which  gave  Adams 
his  opportunity.  He  put  his  reply  on  the  express  and  impregnable 
gi’ound  of  the  consent  of  the  governed,  as  declared  in  our  Decla- 
ration of  Independence.  On  the  25th  of  November,  he  made,  for 
the  President’s  use.  a draft  of  observations  upon  the  communica- 
tions recently  received  from  the  Russian  minister.  The  paper 
begins  as  follows: 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  of  America  is  essentially  republican. 
By  their  Constitution  it  is  provided  that  “the  United  States  shall  guarantee 
to  every  State  in  this  Union  a republican  form  of  government,  and  shall 
protect  them  from  invasion.” 

The  principles  of  this  polity  are;  1.  That  the  institution  of  government  to 
be  lawful,  must  be  pacific,  that  is,  founded  upon  the  consent  and  by  the  agree- 
ment of  those  U'ho  are  governed;  and  2.  that  each  nation  is  exclusively  the 
judge  of  the  government  best  suited  to  itself,  and  that  no  other  nation  can 
justly  interfere  by  force  to  impose  a different  government  upon  it.  The 
first  of  the  principles  may  be  designated  as  the  principle  of  liberty,  the 
second  as  the  principle  of  national  independence;  they  are  both  principles  of 
peace  and  of  good  will  to  men. 

A necessary  consi^uence  of  the  second  of  these  principles  is  that  the 
United  States  recognize  in  other  nations  the  right  which  they  claim  and  ex- 
ercise for  themselves  of  establishing  and  modifying  their  own  governments, 
according  to  their  own  judgments  and  views  of  their  interests,  not  encroach- 
ing upon  the  rights  of  others.  (Ford,  p.  38.) 

ISIr.  Adams  states  later  in  the  same  document: 

In  the  general  declarations  that  the  allied  monarchs  will  never  compound 
and  never  will  even  treat  with  th  revolution,  and  that  their  policy  has  only  for 
its  object  by  forcible  interposition  to  guarantee  the  tranquiUity  of  all  the 
States  of  whic’a  the  civilized  world  is  composed,  the  President  wishes  to  per- 
ceive the  sentiments,  the  application  of  which  is  limited,  and  intended  in 
‘heir  results  to  be  limited  to  the  affaii's  of  Eui-ope.  (Ford,  p.  40.) 

5298 


11 


Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr.  Calhonn  hesitated  in  regard  to  the  inser- 
tion of  this  paragraph  in  the  answer  to  Eussia,  bnt  neither  of 
them,  as  appears  from  the  full  narrative  in  Mr.  Adams’s  diai-y, 
objected  to  the  doctrine.  They  thought  it  might  be  offensive  to 
Russia.  Accordingly  Mr.  Adams  read  the  paper  to  Baron  Tuyll, 
omitting  that  paragraph,  but  received  a letter  from  the  Presiden. 
a little  later,  j-ielding  his  objections  and  consenting  to  its  reten- 
tion. 

Mr.  Worthington  C.  Ford,  in  an  interesting  paper  contained  in 
the  Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  for  Jan- 
uary, 1902,  narrates  the  whole  story,  and  says  in  conclusion: 

Tliat  the  timidity  of  the  President  was  awakened,  that  record  shows:  hut 
the  persistence  of  Adams  and  the  very  weighty  arguments  he  advanced  in 
its  favor  induced  Monroe  to  yield,  but  not  until  it  was  too  late  for  the  pur- 
pose intended.  (Ford,  p.  40.) 

Mr.  Ford  adds,  after  citing  the  Russian  minister’s  communica- 
tion: 

This  gave  Adams  his  opening.  If  the  Emperor  set  up  to  be  the  mouth- 
piece of  Divine  Providence  it  would  be  well  to  intimate  vhat  this  counti'y  did 
not  recognize  the  language  spoken  and  had  a destiny  of  its  own,  also  under 
the  guidance  of  Divine  Providence.  If  Alexander  could  exploit  his  political 
principles,  those  of  a brutal  repressive  policy,  the  United  States  could  show 
th.at  another  sy.stem  of  government,  remote  and  separate  from  European 
traditions  and  administration,  could  give  rise  to  a new  and  more  active  polit- 
ical principle— the  consent  of  the  governed— between  which  and  the  Emperor 
there  could  not  exist  even  a sentimental  sympathy.  (Ford,  p.  15.) 

So,  Mr.  President,  if  you  have  your  own  way,  and  keep  on  in 
the  path  you  are  treading,  you  have  not  only  repealed  the  l)e.'  la- 
ration  of  Independence,  but  you  have  left  for  the  klonroe  doctrine 
only  the  principle  of  brutal  selfishness.  You  have  taken  Horn 
that  doctrine,  which  is  the  chief  glory  of  this  country,  from  the 
time  of  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1783  till  the  inauguration  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  in  1861,  its  foundation  in  righteousness  and  freedom, 
and  you  found.it  only  upon  selfishness.  You  say  not  that  it  is 
right,  but  only  that  it  is  for  our  interest.  If  hereafter  you  go 
to  war  for  it — if  you  have  your  waj' — it  will  not  be  for  the  glory 
of  the  liberator  or  for  the  principle  on  which  the  Republic  is 
founded.  You  will  only  have  Ancient  Pistol’s  solace: 

I shaU  sutler  be  unto  the  camp. 

And  profits  will  accrue. 

John  Quincy  Adams  lived  to  see  the  great  doctrine  he  had  been 
taught  from  his  cradle,  which  he  had  di’awn  in  with  his  mother’s 
milk,  derided  and  trampled  under  foot  by  a people  drunk  with 
conquest  and  dazzled  by  military  glory.  He  lived  to  see  the 
President  take  soldiers  and  not  statesmen  for  his  counselors. 
He  lived  to  see  slavery  entrenched  in  every  department  of  the 
Government — in  the  White  House,  in  court,  in  Congress,  in  trade, 
and  in  the  pulpit.  But  he  never  wavered  nor  faltered  in  liis  sub- 
lime faith.  He  faced  the  stormy  and  turbulent  waves  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  at  eighty.  He  took  for  his  motto: 
Alter!  Seculo — a motto  which  his  son  inscribed  at  his  burial  place 
at  Quincy. 

But  the  new  age  came  sooner  even  than  the  faith  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  had  predicted.  In  less  than  thirteen  years  from  his  death, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  whom  the  people  sent  to  the  White  House,  had 
declared  on  his  way  thither  the  sublime  doctrine  of  the  consent 
of  the  governed  to  be  that  on  which  the  Republic  is  founded,  and 
for  which,  if  need  be,  he  was  willing  to  be  assassinated.  I think, 
therefore,  modestly  I hope  and  humbly,  that  the  men  who  differ 
from  their  political  associates,  and  even  from  majorities,  may  find 
5298 


12 


sometliing  of  consolation  and  something  of  hope  in  the  company 
of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  in  the  company  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

When  we  ratified  the  treaty  of  Paris  we  committed  ourselves 
to  one  experiment  in  Cuba  and  another  in  the  Philippine  Islands. 
We  had  said  already  that  Cuba  of  right  ought  to  be  free  and  in- 
dependent. So  when  in  the  treaty  Spain  abandoned  her  sover- 
eignty the  title  of  Cuba  became  at  once  complete.  We  were  only 
to  stay  there  to  keep  order  until  we  could  hand  over  Cuba  to  a 
government  her  people  had  chosen  and  established. 

By  the  same  treaty  we  bought  the  Philippine  Islands  for  $20,- 
000,000  and  declared  and  agreed  that  Congress  shall  dispose  of 
them.  So,  according  to  those  who  held  that  treaty  valid,  it  be- 
came the  duty  of  the  President  to  reduce  them  to  submission,  and 
of  Congress  to  govern  them. 

Here  the  two  doctrines  are  brought  into  sharp  antagonism. 

In  Cuba,  of  right,  just  government,  according  to  you.  must  rest 
on  the  consent  of  the  govenied.  Her  people  are  to  “institute  a 
new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and 
organizing  its  powers  in  such  form  as  to  them  shall  seem  most 
likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  happiness.” 

In  the  Philippine  Islands  a government  is  to  be  instituted  by  a 
power  10.000  miles  away,  to  be  in  the  beginning  a despotism,  es- 
tablished by  military  power. 

It  is  to  be  a despotism  where  there  is  treason  without  an  overt 
act  and  elections,  if  they  have  them,  without  political  debate,  and 
schools  where  they  can  not  teach  liberty.  It  is  to  be  established 
by  military  power,  and  to  be  such,  to  iise  the  language  of  the 
McEnery  resolution,  such  as  shall  seem  “ for  the  interest  of  the 
United  States.” 

You  have  given  both  doctrines  a three  years’  trial.  Three  years 
is  sometimes  a very  long  time  and  sometimes  a very  short  time  in 
human  affairs:  I believe  the  whole  life  of  the  Savior,  after  He 
first  made  His  divine  mission  knovm,  lasted  but  three  years. 
Three  years  has  wrought  a mighty  change  in  Cuba,  and  it  has 
wrought  a mighty  change  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  We  have 
had  plenty  of  time  to  try  both  experiments. 

Pre.sident  Roosevelt  a day  or  two  ago  very  truly  and  eloquently 
recited  the  story  of  what  we  had  done  for  Cuba,  and  claimed,  and 
sm’ely  he  was  right,  that  it  was  one  of  the  chief  glories  of  the  Re- 
piiblic  in  all  our  glorious  history.  When  he  had  finished  the  re- 
cital he  said,  “ That  is  onedeed  consummated  to-day;  andnow  for 
the  other.”  I do  not  believe  that  brave  and  honest  man  will  con- 
tent himself  to  match  this  glorious  instance  of  self-denial  and  good 
faith,  which  has  so  stirred  his  enthusiasm,  by  putting  against  it 
the  gift  of  $200,000  from  the  Treasury  to  relieve  suffering  Marti- 
ni<iue,  a gift  which,  in  proportion  to  oiir  resources,  is  as  if  a man 
with  $60,000  had  given  a two-dollar  bill.  There  can  be  but  one 
other  deed  which  his  Administration  can  do  which  can  match  the 
glories  of  the  liberation  of  Cuba,  and  that  will  be  the  liberation 
of  the  Philippine  Islands. 

Now,  what  has  each  cost  you.  and  what  has  each  profited  you? 

In  stating  this  account  of  profit  and  loss  I hardly  know  whfich 
to  take  up  first,  principles  and  honor  or  material  interests — I 
should  have  known  very  well  which  to  have  taken  up  first  down 
to  three  years  ago — what  you  call  the  sentimental,  the  ideal,  the 
historical  on  the  right  side  of  the  cohimn;  the  cost  or  the  profit 
in  honor  or  shame  and  in  chai'acter  and  in  principle  and  moral 
influence,  in  true  national  glory;  or  the  practical  side,  the  cost 
62'.)8 


13 


in  money  and  gain,  in  life  and  health,  in  wasted  labor,  in  dimin- 
ished national  strength,  or  in  prospects  of  trade  and  money  getting. 

I shoTild  naturally  begin  where  our  fathers  used  to  begin.  But 
somehow  the  things  get  so  inextricably  blended  that  we  can  not 
keep  them  separate.  This  world  is  so  made  that  yoxi  can  not  keep 
honesty,  and  sound  policy,  and  freedom,  and  mateiial  property, 
and  good  government,  and  the  consent  of  the  governed,  apart. 
Men  who  undertake  to  make  money  by  cheating  pay  for  it  by 
failure  in  business.  If  you  try  to  keep  order  by  military  despot- 
ism you  siiffer  from  it  by  revolution  and  by  barbarity  in  war. 
If  a strong  people  try  to  govern  a weak  one  against  its  will,  the 
home  government  will  get  despotic,  too.  You  can  not  maintain 
despotism  in  Asia  and  a republic  in  America.  If  you  try  to  de- 
prive even  a savage  or  a barbarian  of  his  just  rights  you  can 
never  do  it  without  becoming  a savage  or  a barbarian  yourself. 

Gentlemen  talk  about  sentimentalities,  about  idealism.  They 
like  practical  statesmanship  better.  But,  Mr.  President,  this 
whole  debate  for  the  last  four  years  has  been  a debate  between 
two  kinds  of  sentimentality.  There  has  been  practical  states- 
manship in  plenty  on  both  sides.  Your  side  have  carried  their 
sentimentalities  and  ideals  out  in  your  practical  statesmanship. 
The  other  side  have  tried  and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  carry  theii’S 
out  in  practical  statesmanship  also.  On  one  side  have  been  these 
sentimentahties.  They  were  the  ideals  of  the  fathers  of  the  Eev- 
olutionary  time,  and  from  their  day  down  till  the  day  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  Charles  Sumner  was  over.  The  sentimentalities 
were  that  all  men  in  political  right  were  created  equal;  that  gov- 
ernments derive  their  just  povrers  from  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, and  are  instituted  to  secure  that  equality;  that  every  peo- 
ple— not  every  scattering  neighborhood  or  settlement  without 
organic  life,  not  every  portion  of  a people  who  maybetemporainly 
discontented,  but  the  political  being  that  we  call  a people — has 
the  right  to  institute  a government  for  itself  and  to  lay  its 
foundation  on  such  principles  and  organize  its  powers  in  such 
form  as  to  it  and  not  to  any  other  peoijle  shall  seem  most  likely 
to  effect  its  safety  and  happiness.  Now,  a good  deal  of  practica.1 
statesmanship  has  followed  from  these  ideals  and  sentimentalities. 
They  have  builded  forty-five  States  on  firm  foundations.  They 
have  covered  South  America  with  republics.  They  have  kept 
despotism  out  of  the  Western  Hemisphere.  They  have  made  the 
United  States  the  freest,  strongest,  richest  of  the  nations  of  the 
world.  They  have  made  the  word  republic  a name  to  conjure 
by  the  round  world  over.  By  their  virtue  the  American  flag — 
beautiful  as  a flower  to  those  who  love  it;  terrible  as  a meteor  to 
those  who  hate  it — floats  everywhere  over  peaceful  seas,  and  is 
welcomed  everywhere  in  friendly  ports  as  the  emblem  of  peaceful 
supremacy  and  sovereignty  in  the  commerce  of  the  world. 

Has  there  been  any  practical  statesmanship  incur  dealing  with 
Cuba?  You  had  precisely  the  same  problem  in  the  East  and  in 
the  West.  You  knew  all  about  conditions  in  Cuba.  Ifiiere  has 
been  no  lack  of  counselors  to  whisper  in  the  ear  of  the  President 
and  Senate  and  House  the  dishonorable  cmmsel  that  we  should 
hold  on  to  Cuba,  without  regard  to  our  pledges  or  our  principles, 
and  that  the  resolution  of  the  Senator  from  Colorado  [Mr.  Teller] 
was  a great  mistake.  “Ye  shall  not  surely  die,  ” said  the  serpent — 
Squat  like  a toad,  close  at  tlie  ear  of  Eve. 

I do  not  know  how  other  men  may  feel,  but  I think  that  the 
statesmen  who  have  had  something  to  do  with  bringing  Cuba  into 
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the  family  of  nations,  when  they  look  hack  on  their  career,  that 
my  friends  who  sit  around  me,  when  each  comes  to  look  back 
ui)on  a career  of  honorable  and  brilliant  public  service,  will  count 
the  share  they  had  in  that  as  amo:ig  the  brightest,  the  greenest, 
and  the  freshest  laurels  in  their  crown. 

I do  not  think  I could  honestly  repeat  all  the  compliments 
■which  the  Senator  from  Wisconsin  is  in  the  habit  of  paying  to 
the  Senator  from  Colorado.  The  Senator  from  Colorado  has  gone 
against  my  grain  very  often,  especially  when  he  voted  for  the 
Spanish  treaty  and  when  his  vote  defeated  the  Bacon  resolution. 
But  I doxibt  whether  any  man  who  has  sat  in  this  Chamber  since 
Charles  Sumner  died,  or  whether  all  who  sit  here  now  put  together, 
have  done  a more  important  single  service  to  the  country  than  he 
did  in  securing  the  passage  of  the  resolution  w'hich  pledged  us  to 
deal  with  Cuba  according  to  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

You  also,  my  imperialistic  friends,  have  had  your  ideals  and 
your  sentimentalities.  One  is  that  the  flag  shall  never  l)e  hauled 
do'mi  where  it  has  once  floated.  Another  is  that  you  •will  not 
talk  or  reason  with  a people  with  arms  in  their  hands.  Another 
is  that  sovereignty  over  an  unwilling  people  may  be  bought  with 
gold.  And  another  is  that  sovereignty  may  be  got  by  force  of 
arms,  as  the  booty  of  battle  or  the  spoils  of  victory. 

What  has  been  the  practical  statesmanship  which  comes  from 
your  ideals  and  your  sentimentalities?  You  have  wasted  six  hun- 
dred millions  of  treasure.  You  have  sacrificed  nearly  10,000  Amer- 
ican lives — the  flower  of  our  youth.  You  have  devastated  prov- 
inces. You  nave  slain  uncounted  thousands  of  the  people  you 
desire  to  benefit.  You  have  established  reconcentration  camps. 
Your  generals  are  coming  home  from  their  harvest,  bringing 
their  sheaves  with  them,  in  the  shape  of  other  thousands  of  sick 
and  wounded  and  insane  to  drag  out  miserable  lives,  wrecked  in 
body  and  mind.  You  make  the  American  flag  in  the  eyes  of  a 
numerous  people  the  emblem  of  sacrilege  in  Christian  churches, 
and  of  the  burning  of  human  dwellings,  and  of  the  horror  of  the 
water  torture.  Your  practical  statesmanship,  •which  disdains  to 
take  George  Washington  and  Abraham  Lincoln  or  the  soldiers  of 
the  Revolution  or  of  the  civil  war  as  models,  has  looked  in  some 
cases  to  Spain  for  your  example.  I believe — nay,  I kno’w — that 
in  general  our  officers  and  soldiers  are  humane.  But  in  some 
cases  they  have  carried  on  your  warfare  ■with  a mixture  of  Ameri- 
can ingenuity  and  Castilian  cruelty. 

Your  practical  statesmanship  has  succeeded  in  converting  a 
people  who  three  years  ago  were  ready  to  kiss  the  hem  of  the 
garment  of  the  American  and  to  welcome  him  as  a liberator,  who 
thronged  after  your  men  when  they  landed  on  those  islands  ■with 
benediction  and  gratitrrde,  into  sullen  and  irreconcilable  ene- 
mies, possessed  of  a hatred  which  centuries  can  not  eradicate. 

Tlie  practical  statesmanship  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence and  the  G olden  Rule  would  have  cost  nothing  but  a few  land 
words.  They  would  have  bought  for  you  the  great  title  of  lib- 
erator and  benefactor,  which  your  fathers  won  for  your  country 
in  the  South  American  Republics  and  in  Japan  and  ■which  you 
have  won  in  Cuba.  They  would  have  bought  for  you  the  undy- 
ing gratitude  of  a great  and  free  people  and  the  undying  glory 
which  belongs  to  the  name  of  liberator.  That  people  would 
have  felt  for  you  as  Japan  felt  for  you  when  she  declared  last 
£298 


15 

summer  that  she  cured  everything  to  the  United  States  of 
America. 

What  have  your  ideals  cost  you,  and  -what  have  they  bought 
for  you? 

1. '  For  the  Philippine  Islands  you  have  had  to  repeal  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence. 

For  Cuba  yoxi  have  had  to  reaffirm  it  and  give  it  ne'w  luster. 

2.  For  the  Philippine  Islands  you  have  had  to  conveii;  the  Mon- 
roe doctrine  into  a doctrine  of  mere  selfishness. 

For  Cuba  you  have  acted  oh  it  and  vindicated  it. 

3.  In  Ci’.ba  you  have  got  the  eternal  gratitude  of  a free  people. 

In  the  Philippme  Islands  you  have  got  the  hatred  and  sullen 

submission  of  a subjugated  people. 

4.  From  Cuba  jmu  have  brought  home  nothing  btit  glory. 

From  the  Philippines  you  have  broiight  home  nothing  of  glory. 

5.  In  Cuba  no  man  thinks  of  counting  the  cost.  The  few  sol- 
diers who  came  home  from  Cuba  wounded  or  sick  carry  about 
their  wounds  and  their  pale  faces  as  if  they  were  medals  of  honor. 
What  soldier  glories  in  a wound  or  an  empty  sleeve  which  he  got 
in  the  Philippines? 

6.  The  conflict  in  the  Philippines  has  cost  you  $600,000,000, 
thousands  of  American  soldiers — the  flower  of  j'our  youth — the 
health  and  sanity  of  thousands  more,  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Filipinos  slain. 

Another  price  we  have  paid  as  the  result  of  your  practical 
statesmanship.  We  have  sold  out  the  right,  the  old  American 
right,  to  speak  out  the  sympathy  which  is  in  our  hearts  for  peo- 
ple who  are  desolate  and  oppressed  everyv'here  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  Has  there  ever  been  a contest  between  power  and  the 
spirit  of  liberty,  before  that  now  going  on  in  South  Africa,  when 
American  Senators  held  their  peace  because  they  thought  they 
were  under  an  obligation  to  the  nation  in  the  wrong  for  not  in- 
terfering with  us?  I have  heard  that  it  turned  out  that  we  had 
no  gi’eat  reason  for  gratitude  of  that  Mnd.  But  I myself  heard 
an  American  Senator,  a soldier  of  the  civil  war,  declare  in  this 
Chamber  that,  while  he  sympathized  with  the  Boers,  he  did  not 
say  so  because  of  our  obligation  to  Great  Britain  for  not  meddling 
with  us  in  the  war  with  Spain.  Nothing  worse  than  that  was 
said  of  us  in  tlie  old  slavery  days.  A great  English  poet  before 
the  civil  war.  in  a poem  entitled  “ The  Curse,”  taunted  us  by  say- 
ing that  we  did  not  dare  to  utter  our  sympathy  with  freedom  so 
long  as  we  were  the  holders  of  slaves.  I remember,  after  fifty 
years,  the  sting  and  shame  I felt  in  my  youth  when  that  was 
uttered.  I had  hoped  that  we  had  got  rid  of  that  forever  before 
1865. 

Ye  shall  watch  while  kings  ccn.spire 
Round  the  people’s  smouldei  ing  fire. 

And,  warm  for  your  part, 

Shall  never  dare,  O,  shame! 

To  utter  the  thought  into  flame 
Which  burns  at  your  heart. 

Ye  shall  watch  while  nations  strive 
With  the  bloodhounds — die  or  survive — 

Drop  faint  from  their  jaws. 

Or  throttle  them  backward  to  death. 

And  only  under  your  breath 
Shall  ye  bless  the  cause. 

Sometimes  men  are  affected  by  particular  instances  who  are 
not  impressed  by  statistics  of  great  numbers. 

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16 

Sterne’s  starling  in  its  cage  has  moved  more  hearts  than  were 
ever  stirred  by  census  tables. 

Let  me  take  two  examples  out  of  a thousand  with  which  to  con- 
trast the  natiiral  result  of  the  doctrine  of  your  fathers  with  yours. 

I do  not  think  there  ever  was  a more  delightful  occurrence  in 
the  history  of  Massachusetts  since  the  Puritans  or  the  Pilgrims 
landed  there,  than  the  visit  to  Harvard  two  years  ago  of  the 
Cuban  teachers  to  the  Harvard  Summer  School.  The  old  Uni- 
versity put  on  her  best  apparel  for  the  occasion.  The  guests  were 
manly  boys  and  fair  girls,  making  you  think  of  Tennyson’s  sweet 
girl  graduates,  who  came  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  old  Harvard  to 
learn  something  which  they  could  teach  to  their  pupils,  and  to 
carry  back  to  their  country  and  teach  their  own  children  undy- 
ing gratitude  to  the  great  Republic.  It  was  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful lessons  in  all  history  of  the  gratitude  of  a people  to  its 
liberator,  and  of  the  affection  of  the  liberator-Republic  to  the 
people  it  had  delivered.  Was  there  ever  a more  fitting  subject 
for  poetry  or  for  art  than  the  venerable  President  Eliot,  sur- 
rounded with  his  staff  of  learned  teachers  and  famous  scholars, 
the  foremost  men  in  the  Republic  of  letters  and  science,  as  he 
welcomed  them,  these  young  men  and  women,  to  the  delights  of 
learning  and  the  blessings  of  liberty? 

Contrast  this  scene  with  another.  It  is  all  you  have  to  show, 
that  you  have  brought  back,  so  far,  from  the  Philippine  Islands. 
You  have  no  grateful  youth  coming  to  sit  at  your  feet.  You  do 
not  dare  to  bring  here  even  a friendly  Filipino  to  tell  you,  with 
unfettered  lips,  what  his  people  think  of  you,  or  what  they  want 
of  you.  i read  the  other  day  in  a Nebraska  paper  a terrible  story 
of  the  passage  through  Omaha  of  a carload  of  maniacs  from  the 
Philippine  Islands. 

The  story,  I believe,  has  been  read  in  the  Senate.  I telegraphed 
to  Omaha  to  the  editor  of  a paper,  of  high  rei)utation;  I believe, 
a zealous  supporter  of  the  policy  of  Imperialism,  to  learn  if  the 
story  was  authentic.  I am  told  in  reply,  and  I am  glad  to  know 
it,  that  the  picture  is  sensational  and  exaggerated,  but  the  sub- 
stantial fact  is  confirmed  that  that  load  of  young  soldiers  passed 
through  that  city  lately,  as  other  like  cargoes  have  i>assed  through 
before,  maniacs  and  broken  in  mental  health  as  the  result  of  serv- 
ice in  the  Philippine  Islands. 

It  is  no  answer  to  tell  me  that  such  horrors  exist  everywhere; 
that  there  are  other  maniacs  at  St.  Elizabeth,  and  that  every 
State  asylum  is  full  of  them.  Tho.se  unhappy  beings  have  been 
visited,  without  any  man’s  fault,  by  the  mysterious  Providence 
of  God,  or  if  their  affliction  comes  from  any  man’s  fault  it  is  our 
duty  to  make  it  known  and  to  hold  the  party  guilty  responsible. 
It  is  a terrible  picture  that  I have  drawn.  It  is  a picture  of  men 
suffering  from  the  inevitable  result  which  every  reasonable  man 
mtist  have  anticipated  of  the  decisions  made  in  this  Chamber 
when  we  elected  to  make  war  for  the  principle  of  despotism  in- 
stead of  a policy  of  peace,  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Mr.  President,  every  one  of  these  maniacs,  every  one  of  the 
many  like  freights  of  horror  that  come  back  to  us  from  the  Phil- 
ippine Islands,  every  dead  soldier,  every  wounded  or  wrecked 
soldier  was  once  an  American  boy,  the  delight  of  some  Ameri- 
can home,  fairer  and  nobler  in  his  young  promise,  as  we  like 
to  think,  than  any  other  the  round  world  over.  Ah!  Mr.  Presi- 
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17 


dent,  it  was  not  $20,000,000  tliat  we  paid  as  the  price  of  sov- 
ereignty. It  was  the  souls  of  these  hoj-s  of  oui's  that  entered  into 
the  cost.  When  you  determined  by  one  vote  to  ratify  the  Span- 
ish treaty;  when  you  determined  by  one  vote  to  defeat  the  Bacon 
resolution;  when  you  declared,  in  the  McEnery  resolution,  that 
we  would  dispose  of  that  people  as  might  be  for  the  interest  of 
the  United  States;  when  the  Senator  from  Wisconsin  said  we 
would  not  talk  to  a people  who  had  arms  in  their  hands,  although 
they  begged  that  there  should  be  no  war,  and  that  we  would  at 
least  hear  them;  when  some  of  you  went  about  the  coimtry  de- 
claring that  the  flag  never  should  be  hauled  down  where  it  once 
floated,  you  did  not  know,  because  in  your  excitement  and  haste 
your  intellectual  vision  was  dazzled  with  empire,  you  did  not  know 
that  this  was  to  come.  But  you  might  have  known  it.  A little 
reflection  and  a little  reason  would  have  told  you.  I wonder  if 
the  Republican  editor  who  made  that  knorvn  was  attacking  the 
American  Army.  I wonder  if  those  of  us  who  do  not  like  that 
are  the  friends  or  the  enemies  of  the  American  soldier. 

I can  not  understand  how  any  man,  certainly  how  any  intelli- 
gent student  of  history,  could  have  failed  to  foretell  exactly  what 
has  happened  when  we  agreed  to  the  Spanish  treaty.  Everything 
that  has  happened  since  has  been  the  natural,  inevitable,  inexora- 
ble result  of  the  policy  you  then  declared. 

If  yon  knew  anything  of  human  nature  you  knew  that  the  great 
doctrine  that  just  government  depends  on  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned. as  applied  to  the  relation  of  one  people  to  another,  has  its 
foundation  in  the  nature  of  man  itself.  No  people  will  submit,  if 
it  can  be  helped,  to  the  rule  of  any  other  people.  You  must  have 
known  perfectly  well,  if  you  had  stopped  to  consider,  that  so  far 
as  the  Philippine  people  were  like  us  they  would  do  exactly  what 
we  did  and  would  do  again  in  a like  case.  So  far  as  they  were 
civilized  they  would  resist  you  with  all  the  power  of  civilized 
war.  So  far  as  they  were  savage  they  woidd  resist  you  by  all  the 
methods  of  savage  warfare. 

You  never  could  eradicate  from  the  hearts  of  that  people  by 
force  the  love  of  liberty  which  God  put  there. 

For  He  that  worketh  high  and  wise. 

Nor  pauseth  in  His  plan, 

Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man. 

This  war,  if  you  call  it  war,  has  gone  on  for  three  years.  It 
will  go  on  in  some  form  for  three  hundred  years,  unless  this  policy 
be  abandoned.  You  will  undoubtedly  have  times  of  peace  and 
quiet,  or  pretended  submission.  You  trill  buy  men  with  titles, 
or  office,  or  salaries.  You  will  intimidate  cowards.  You  will 
get  pretended  and  fawning  submission.  The  land  will  smile  and 
smile  and  seem  at  peace.  But  the  volcano  will  be  there.  The 
lava  vull  break  out  again.  You  can  never  settle  this  thing  until 
you  settle  it  right. 

I think  my  friends  of  the  majority,  whatever  else  they  may 
claim — and  they  can  rightly  claim  a great  deal  that  is  good  and 
creditable  for  themselves — will  not  claim  to  be  prophets.  They 
used  to  prophesy  a good  deal  two  years  ago.  \Ye  had  great 
prophets  and  minor  prophets.  All  predicted  peace  and  submis- 
sion. and  a flag  followed  by  trade,  with  wealth  flowing  over  this 
land  from  the  Far  East,  and  the  American  people  standing  in  the 
Philippine  Islands  looking  over  vuth  eager  gaze  toward  China. 

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Where  are  now  yonr  prophets  which  prophesied  unto  yon?  I fear 
that  we  must  make  the  answer  that  was  made  to  the  children  of 
Is  rael:  “ They  prophesied  falsely,  and  the  prophets  have  become 
wind,  and  the  word  is  not  in  them.” 

An  instance  of  this  delusion,  which  seems  to  have  prevailed 
everj- where,  is  stated  by  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  in  the  May  num- 
ber of  the  North  American  Review.  He  says: 

The  writer  had  tlie  honor  of  an  interview  with  President  McKinley  before 
war  broke  out  with  our  allies,  and  ventured  to  predict  that  if  he  attempted 
to  exercise  sovereignty  over  the  Filipinos — whom  he  had  bought  at  $2.50  a 
head — ^he  would  be  shooting  these  people  down  within  thirty  days.  He  smiled, 
and,  addressing  a gentleman  who  was  present,  said:  “Mr.  Carnegie  doesn't 
ur.dersfand  the  situation  at  all.”  Then  turning  to  the  writer,  he  said:  “ Wo 
will  be  welcomed  as  their  best  friends.”  “So  little,”  says  Mr.  Carnegie,  “did 
dear,  kind,  loving  President  McKinley  expect  ever  to  be  other  than  the 
fi'iendly  cooperator  with  those  people.” 

A guerrilla  warfare,  carried  on  by  a weaker  people  against  a 
stronger,  is  recognised  and  legitimate.  Many  nations  have  re- 
sorted to  it.  Our  war  of  the  Revolution  in  many  parts  of  the 
country  differed  little  from  it.  Spain  carried  it  on  against  Napo- 
leon when  the  French  forces  overran  her  territory,  and  mankind 
sympathized  with  her.  The  greatest  of  English  poets  since  Milton , 
William  Wordsworth,  described  that  warfare  in  a noble  sonnet, 
which  will  answer,  with  scarcely  the  change  of  a word,  as  a de- 
scription of  the  Filipino  people: 

Hunger,  and  sultry  heat,  and  nipping  blast 
From  bleak  hilltop,  and  length  of  march  by  night 
Through  heavy  swamp  or  over  snow-clad  height— 

These  hardshiijs  ill-sustained,  these  dangei's  past. 

The  roving  Spanish  bands  are  reached  at  last, 

Ch,T,rged,  and  dispersed  like  foam;  but  as  a flight 
Of  scattered  quails  by  signs  do  reunite. 

So  these — and,  heard  of  once  again,  are  chased 
With  combination  of  long-practiced  art 
And  newly  kindled  hope;  but  they  are  fled. 

Gone  are  they,  viewless  as  the  buried  dead: 

Where  now?  Their  sword  is  at  the  foeman’s  heartl 
And  thus  from  year  to  year  his  walk  they  thwart, 

And  hang  like  dreams  aroimd  his  guilty  bed. 

I believe  the  American  Army,  officers  and  soldiers,  to  be  made 
tap  of  as  brave  and  humane  men,  in  general,  as  ever  lived.  They 
have  done  what  has  always  been  done,  and  until  human  nature 
shall  change,  always  will  be  done  in  all  like  conditions.  The  chief 
guilt  is  on  the  heads  of  those  who  created  the  conditions. 

One  thing,  however,  I am  bound  to  say  in  all  frankness.  I do 
not  know  but  my  statement  may  be  challenged.  But  I am  sure 
that  nearly  every  well-infonned  man  who  will  hear  it  or  read  it 
will  know  that  it  is  true.  That  is,  that  you  will  never  get  officers 
or  soldiers  in  the  standing  Army,  as  a rnle,  to  give  testimony 
which  they  think  will  be  disagreeable  to  their  superiors  or  to  the 
War  Department. 

I have  letters  in  large  numbers  myself.  I believe  eveiy  Sena- 
tor in  this  body,  who  is  expected  to  do  anything  to  inquire  into 
these  atrocities,  has  had  abundant  letters  to  the  effect  which  I 
state.  The  same  evil  of  which  we  are  all  conscious,  which  leads 
men  in  p’ublic  life  to  be  unwilling  to  incur  unpopularity  or  the 
displeasure  of  their  constituents  by  frankly  uttering  and  acting 
upon  their  opinions,  applies  with  a hundredfold  more  force  when 
you  summon  a soldier  or  an  officer  to  tell  facts  which  will  bear 
heavily  on  the  administration  of  the  war.  I have  had  letters 
ihown  me  by  members  of  this  body  who  vouched  personally  for 
the  absolute  trustworthiness  of  the  wwiters,  who  detailed  the  hor- 
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rors  of  the  water  torture  and  other  kindred  atrocities,  which  no 
inducement  would  lead  them  to  make  public. 

The  private  soldier  who  has  ended  his  term  of  service  or  who 
expects  to  end  it  and  return  to  private  life,  is  lender  less  restraint. 
Blit  when  he  tells  his  story  he  is  met  by  the  statement  of  an  offi- 
cer, in  some  cases,  that  it  is  well  known  that  private  soldiers  are 
in  the  habit  of  “ drawing  the  long  bow,”  to  use  the  phrase  of  one 
general  whose  name  has  been  brought  into  this  discussion.  In 
other  words,  these  generals  are  so  jealoiis  of  the  honor  of  the 
Army,  and  their  own,  that  they  confine  their  jealousy  to  the  honor 
of  the  officers,  and  expect  you  to  reject  these  things  on  the  asser- 
tion that  the  soldier  is  an  habitual  liar,  and  then  they  reproach 
the  men  who  complain  with  being  indifferent  to  the  honor  of  the 
Army. 

Was  it  ever  heard  before  that  a civilized,  humane,  and  Chris- 
tian nation  made  war  upon  a people  and  refused  to  tell  them  what 
they  wanted  of  them?  You  refuse  to  tell  these  people  this  year  or 
next  year  or  perhaps  for  twenty  years,  whether  you  mean  in  the 
end  to  deprive  them  of  their  independence,  or  no.  You  say  you 
want  them  to  siibmit.  To  submit  to  what?  To  mere  military 
force?  But  for  what  purpose  or  what  end  is  that  military  force 
to  be  exerted?  You  decline  to  tell  them.  Not  only  you  decline 
to  say  what  you  want  of  them,  except  bare  and  abject  surrender, 
but  you  will  not  even  let  them  tell  you  what  they  ask  of  yo\i. 

The  Senator  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Forajser]  says  it  is  asserted  with 
a show  of  reason  that  a majority  of  the  people  favor  our  cause. 
General  Mac  Arthur  denies  this  statement,  and  says  they  were 
almost  a unit  for  Aguinaldo.  Mr.  Denby  and  Mr.  Schurman,  two 
of  the  three  commissioners  of  the  first  Filipino  Commission,  deny 
the  statement.  General  Bell,  in  his  letter  of  December  13,  1901, 
says  “ a majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  his  prorince  have  persist- 
ently continued  their  opposition  during  the  entire  period  of  three 
years,  and  that  the  men  who  accept  local  office  from  the  governor 
and  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  do  it  solely  for  the  purpose  of  im- 
proving their  opportunity  for  resistance.”  That  statement  is 
concurred  in  by  every  department  commander  there.  Certainly 
Major  Gardener's  apparently  temperate  and  fair  statement — about 
which  we  are  to  have  no  opportunity  to  examine  him  until  Con- 
gress adjourns — does  not  say  any.  such  thing  as  that  suggested  by 
the  Senator  from  Ohio. 

But  what  is  your  cause?  What  is  your  cause  that  they  favor? 
Do  you  mean  tha,t  a majority  of  the  Filipino  people  favor  your 
killing  them?  Certainly  not.  Do  you  mean  that  a majority  of 
the  Filipino  people,  or  that  any  one  man  in  the  Philippine  Islands, 
according  to  the  evidence  of  Governor  Taft  himself,  favors  any- 
thing that  you  are  willing  to  do? 

The  evidence  is  that  some  of  them  favor  their  admission  as  an 
American  State  and  others  favor  a government  of  their  own  un- 
der your  protection.  Others  would  like  to  come  in  as  a Territory 
under  our  Constitution.  But  is  there  any  evidence  that  one 
human  being  there  is  ready  to  submit  to  your  government  with- 
out any  rights  under  our  Constitution,  or  without  any  prospect 
of  coming  in  as  an  American  State?  Or  is  there  any  evidence 
that  any  single  American  citizen,  in  the  Senate  or  out  of  it,  is 
willing  that  we  should  do  anything  that  a single  Filipino  is  ready 
to  consent  to? 

I have  no  doubt  they  will  take  the  oath  of  allegiance.  Un- 
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doubtedly  they  ■\rill  go  through  the  form  of  submission.  Un- 
doubtedly you  have  force  enoiigh  to  make  the  ■whole  region  a 
ho-wilng  -wilderness,  if  you  think  fit.  Undoubtedly  you  can  put 
up  a form  of  government  in  -which  they  -will  seem  to  take  some 
share,  and  they  -\^i.ll  take  your  offices  and  your  salaries.  But 
■when  you  come  to  getting  anjd;hing  wliich  is  not  merely  tempo- 
rary; -when  you  come  to  announce  anytlring  in  principle,  such  as 
those  on  which  governments  are  founded,  you  have  not  any  evi- 
dence of  any  considerable  number  of  people  there  ready  to  sub- 
mit to  yom*  -will  unless  they  are  compelled  by  sheer  brutal  force. 

I do  not  -wish  to  dwell  at  length  on  the  circumstances  which 
attended  the  capture  of  Aguinaldo.  But  as  they  have  been 
elaborately  defended  in  this  body,  and  it  is  said  that  the  officer  who 
captured  him  had  a good  record  before,  and  especially  as  he  has 
been  decorated  by  a promotion  by  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
Senate,  I can  not  let  it  pass  in  silence. 

I understand  the  facts  to  be  that  that  officer  disguised  the  men 
under  his  command  in  the  dress  of  Filipino  soldiers;  wrote,  or 
caused  to  be  written,  a forged  letter  to  Aguinaldo,  purporting  to 
come  from  one  of  his  ofiicers,  stating  that  he  was  about  to  bring 
him  some  prisoners  he  had  captured,  and  in  that  way  got  access  to 
Aguinaldo’s  headquarters.  As  ho  approached  he  sent  a message 
to  Aguinaldo  that  he  and  his  friends  were  hungry;  accepted  food 
at  his  hands,  and  when  in  his  presence  threw  do-v\Ti  and  seized  him; 
shot  some  of  the  soldiers  who  were  about  Aguinaldo,  and  brought 
him  back  a prisoner  into  our  lines.  That  is  the  transaction  wliich 
is  so  highly  applauded  in  imperialistic  quarters. 

I do  not  believe  that  the  Senate  knew  what  it  was  doing  when 
it  consented  to  General  Funston’s  promotion.  The  nomination 
came  in  -with  a list  of  Army  and  Na-vy  appointments  and  promo- 
tions— 2,038  in  all — and  the  Senate  assented  to  that  at  the  same 
time  -with  1 ,828  others.  I doubt  very  much  whether  there  were 
10  Senators  in  their  seats  or  whether  one  of  them  listened  to  the 
list  as  it  was  read.  It  is,  I suppose,  betraying  no  secret  to  say  that 
these  lists  are  almost  never  read  to  the  Senate  when  they  come  in 
or  when  they  are  reported  from  the  committee;  that  the  only 
reading  they  get  is  at  the  time  of  the  confinnation,  when  they 
commonly  attract  no  attention  whatever.  I do  not  mean  to  say 
that  if  the  Senate  had  had  its  attention  called  to  the  transaction 
the  result  would  have  been  different.  I only  mean  to  say  that  I 
believe  many  Senators  did  not  know  it.  I suppose  the  question 
whether  the  Senate  would  have  approved  it  might  have  depended 
on  the  character  and  the  quality  of  the  general  service  of  that 
officer  and  not  on  the  estimate  we  formed  of  this  particular  trans- 
action, which  seems  to  have  been  done  under  orders.  I did  not 
know  myself  that  the  nomination  had  been  made  till  long  after 
the  Senate  had  assented.  But  I incline  to  think,  with  General 
MacArthur’s  testimony  before  the  investigating  committee  that 
the  act  was  done  by  his  direction  and  with  his  approval,  I should 
not  have  thoiight  it  fair  to  hold  the  officer  responsible  for  it  by 
denying  him  an  other-wise  deserved  promotion. 

I think  we  are  bound  in  justice  to  General  Funston  to  take  the 
declaration  of  General  MacArthur  that  he  ordered  and  approved 
everj’thing  that  officer  did.  If  that  be  true  we  have  no  right  to 
hold  the  subordinate  responsible,  however  odious  the  act.  If  it 
turn  out  that  that  still  higher  authority  has  approved  the  act, 
then  it  becomes  still  more  emphatically  our  duty  to  point  out  its 
enormity. 

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The  Senator  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Forakee]  . whom  I do  not  now 
see  in  his  seat,  asked  me  day  before  yesterday  whether  I did  not 
believe  that  the  reports  of  the  military  officers  were  to  be  trusted. 
If  he  were  m his  seat,  I would  ask  liim  to  put  me  that  question 
again,  and  if  he  should  I would  put  this  question  to  him:  When 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  an  officer  of  volunteers,  told  his  story  about 
the  canned  beef  and  the  military  supplies,  and  every  officer  in  the 
Regular  Army,  who  knew  the  facts  just  as  he  did.  coiitradicted 
him  in  the  investigatioii , does  he  believe  that  Theodore  Roosevelt 
or  the  officers  of  the  Regular  Aiuny  told  the  truth? 

Mr.  President,  I want  to  say  something  on  the  circumstances 
which  attended  the  capture  of  Aguinaldo.  They  have  been  elabo- 
rately defended  in  this  body,  and  the  officer  who  did  it  has  been 
decorated  with  a promotion.  I do  not  suppose  10  Senators  knew 
what  they  were  doing.  The  name  came  in  with  several  thousand 
names  of  sailors  and  soldiers  in  one  day,  and  nearly  2,000  were 
confii-med  the  next  day.  As  everybody  knows,  they  are  never 
read  except  at  the  time  of  the  confirmation.  But  although  I did 
not  know  anything  about  it  myself,  I am  bound  to  say,  in  all  fair- 
ness, that  since  General  MacAidhur,  the  superior  officer,  has  testi- 
fied that  he  approved  the  act  and  takes  the  responsibility  for  the 
act,  the  subordinate  is  acquitted  so  far  as  that  act  is  concerned; 
and  I do  not  see  how  we  could  have  refused  General  Funston  his 
promotion  if  his  record  in  other  respects  entitled  him  to  it,  if  he 
acted  as  General  MacArthur  says  he  did,  under  orders.  But  the 
higher  the  responsibility  for  the  act  the  more  it  is  our  duty  to  ex- 
amine it. 

Mr.  President,  we  have  two  guides  for  the  conduct  of  military 
officers  in  such  circumstances.  They  apply  not  only  to  this  act 
of  General  Fumston,  but  they  apply  to  most  of  the  conduct  of 
our  military  officers,  of  which  complaint  has  been  made.  One  of 
these  is  Instructions  for  the  Government  of  Armies  of  the  United 
States  in  the  Field,  prepared  by  Dr.  Francis  Lieber  and  promixl- 
gated  by  order  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  other  is  the  convention  at  The  Hague,  agreed  upon  by  the 
representatives  of  this  Goveimment  with  the  others  on  the  29th 
day  of  July,  1899,  and  ratified  by  the  Senate  on  the  14th  of 
March,  1902. 

Obseiwe  that  this  convention  was  agreec]  upon  before  all  these 
acts  happened,  and  was  unanimously  adopted  after  they  had  all 
happened. 

I extract  from  the  Instructions  for  the  Government  Regulation 
of  Armies  in  the  Field  the  follovfing  paragraphs: 

Paragraph  148  is  this: 

The  law  of  war  does  not  allow  proclaiming  either  an  individual  belonging 
to  the  hostile  army  or  a citizen  or  a subject  of  the  hostile  government  an  out- 
law, who  may  be  slain  without  trial  by  any  captor,  any  more  than  the  modem 
law  of  peace  allows  such  intentional' outlawry.  On  the  contrary,  it  abhoi’S 
such  outrage.  The  sternest  retaliation  should  follow  the  murder  committed 
in  consequence  of  such  proclamation,  made  by  whatever  authority.  Civi- 
lized nations  look  with  horror  upon  offers  of  rewards  for  the  assassination 
of  enemies  as  relapses  into  barbarism. 

Now.  Mr.  President,  is  it  denied  that  hundreds  upon  hundreds 
of  Filipinos  have  been  put  to  death  without  trial?  Has  any  soldier 
or  officer  been  brought  to  trial  by  our  authority  for  these  offenses? 
Now,  if  it  be  an  outrage  upon  which  “ nations  look  with  hoiTor.” 
to  use  the  language  of  that  paragraph,  and  which  “ the  law  of  war 
* * * abhors,”  is  it  any  less  a crime  to  be  abhorred  when  it  is 
done  without  such  proclamation?  The  proclamation  does  not, 
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according  to  this  authority,  justify  the  officer  or  soldier  who  acts 
in  obedience  to  it.  On  the  contrary,  his  conduct  is  abhorrent  to 
all  civilized  manhind.  And  j^et  these  thbigs  pass  without  con- 
demnation, without  punishment,  without  trial.  Gentlemen  seem 
to  be  impatient  when  they  are  asked  to  investigate  them,  or  even 
to  hear  the  story  told  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

Paragi-aph  IG  is: 

Military  necessity  does  not  admit  of  cruelty —that  is,  the  infliction  of  suf- 
fering for  the  sake  of  suffering  or  for  revenge,  nor  of  maiming  or  wounding 
except  in  fight,  nor  of  torture  to  extort  confession.  It  does  not  admit  of  the 
use  of  poison  in  any  way  nor  of  the  wanton  devastation  of  a district.  Itadmits 
of  deception,  but  disclaims  acts  of  xierfidy,  and,  in  general,  military  neces- 
sity does  not  include  any  act  of  hostility  which  makes  the  return  to  peace 
unnecessarily  difficult. 

The  rule  says: 

It  admits  of  deception,  but  disclaims  acts  of  perfidy. 

That  also  follows  the  prohibition  of  the  use  of  poison,  with 
which  it  is  associated. 

Now,  perfidy  is  defined  later  in  paragraph  117,  which  declares: 

It  is  justly  considered  an  act  of  bad  faith,  of  infamy,  or  fiendishness  to  de- 
ceive the  enemy  by  flags  of  protection.  * * » 

Paragraph  65  is: 

The  use  of  the  enemy’s  national  standard,  flag,  or  other  emblem  of  na- 
tionality for  the  purpose  of  deceiving  the  enemy  in  battle  is  an  act  of  per- 
fidy. * * * 

Is  not  the  uniform  an  emblem  of  nationality?  If  it  be  an  act  of 
perfidy — the  use  of  that  emblem  of  nationality  to  deceive  the 
enemy  in  battle— is  it  any  less  an  act  of  perfidy  to  use  it  to  steal 
upon  him  and  deceive  him  when  he  is  not  in  battle  and  is  in  Ms 
own  quarters? 

This  is  also  prohibited  by  the  convention  of  The  Hague,  which 
must  have  been  well  known  to  all  our  officers,  which  had  been 
signed  by  the  representatives  of  this  Government,  although  its 
foimal  approval  by  the  Senate  took  place  this  winter. 

I suppose  if  it  be  perfidy  now,  according  to  the  unanimous  opin- 
ion of  the  Senate,  and  was  perfidy  before,  according  to  the  con- 
current action  of  24  great  nations,  the  question  when  we  formally 
ratified  the  treaty  becomes  unimportant. 

Article  23  of  the  convention  declares: 

(f)  To  make  improper  use  of  a flag  of  trace,  the  national  flag,  or  milit.ary 
eu-signs,  and  the  enemy’s  uniform— 

is  specially  prohibited.  That  is  classed  in  that  article  also  with 
the  use  of  poison  and  poisoned  arms. 

So,  Mr.  President,  the  act  of  General  Funston — not  General 
Funston  himself,  if  he  acted  under  orders  of  Ms  superior — but 
the  act  of  General  Funston  is  stamped  with  indelible  infamy  by 
Abraham  Lincoln’s  articles  of  war,  to  which  the  Secretary  of 
War  appeals,  and  the  concurrent  action  of  24  great  nations,  and 
the  unanimous  action  of  the  Senate  tMs  winter. 

Let  me  repeat  a little:  What  is  an  act  of  perfidy,  as  distinguished 
from  the  deception  which  General  MacArthur  thinks  appropriate 
to  all  war,  as  defined  by  both  these  great  and  commanding  au- 
thorities? 

That  is  defined  in  paragraph  65,  which  declares  that — 

The  use  of  the  enemy’s  national  standard,  flag,  or  other  emblem  of  nation- 
ality for  the  purpose  of  deceiving  the  enemy  in  battle  is  an  act  of  perfidy,  by 
which  they  lose  all  claim  to  the  protection  of  the  law  of  war. 

If  that  be  true,  is  it  less  an  act  of  perfidy  to  use  the  uniform  of 
the  enemy — ^his  emblem  of  nationality — to  steal  upon  him  when 
no  battle  is  going  on? 

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One  hundred  and  seventeen  is  to  like  effect: 

It  is  justly  considered  an  act  of  bad  faith,  of  infamy, or  fiendishnoss  to  de- 
ceive the  enemy  by  a flag  of  protection.  Such  act  of  bad  faith  may  be  good 
cause  for  refusing  to  respect  such  flag. 

Such  deception  is  of  the  same  ’ kind  as  that  practiced  on  the 
unsuspecting  Aguinaldo,  which  the  rule  “ justly,”  as  it  declares, 
“ considers  an  act  of  infamy  or  fiendishness.” 

Eule  60  is: 

It  is  against  the  usage  of  modern  war  to  resolve,  in  hatred  and  revenge,  to 
give  no  quarter. 

Observe  this  is  not  justified  even  by  revenge. 

No  body  of  troops  has  the  right  to  declare  that  it  will  not  give,  and  there- 
fore will  not  accept,  quarter. 

56.  Aprisonerof  waris  subject  to  no  punishment  for  beingapublic  enemy, 
nor  is  any  revenge  wi'eaked  upon  him  by  the  intentional  infliction  of  any  suf- 
fering or  disgrace,  by  cruel  imprisonment,  want  of  food,  by  mutilation,  death, 
or  any  other  barbarity. 

So,  Mr.  President,  in  this  attempt  to  force  your  sovereignty  by 
this  process  of  benevolent  assimilation,  we  have  been  brought  to 
the  unexampled  dishonor  of  disregarding  our  own  rules  for  the 
conduct  of  annies  in  the  field  and  to  disregard  the  rules  to  which 
our  national  faith  has  just  been  pledged  to  substantially  all  the 
civilized  powers  of  the  earth. 

I understand  the  facts  to  be  that  this  officer,  with  the  approval 
of  his  superior  officer,  disguised  himself  or  some  of  his  men  in  the 
Filipino  uniform,  stole  upon  Aguinaldo  unawares  under  that 
guise,  deceived  him  by  a forged  letter  representing  that  they  were 
hungry,  received  food  at  his  hands,  and  then  threw  him  down  and 
made  him  captive. 

Now,  if  that  be  not  the  perfidy  twice  denounced  and  expressly 
ranked  with  poisonmg  and  other  like  barbarities  I can  not  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  hmnan  language  or  the  force  of  human 
conduct. 

But  this  act  of  General  Funston's,  approved  by  his  superior  offi- 
cer, was  in  violation,  not  only  of  the  laws  of  war,  but  of  thrvt  law 
of  hospitality  which  governs  alike  everywhere  the  civilized  Chris- 
tian or  pagan  wherever  the  light  of  chivalry  has  penetrated.  Ho 
went  to  Aguinaldo  under  the  pretense  that  he  was  ahungered, 
and  Aguinaldo  fed  him.  Was  not  that  an  act  of  perfidy?  It  vio- 
lated the  holy  rite  of  hospitality  which  even  the  Oriental  nations 
hold  sacred? 

In  Scott's  immortal  romance  of  the  Talisman,  the  Sultan  Sala- 
din  interposes  to  prevent  a criminal  who  had  just  committed  a 
treacherous  murder  from  partaking  of  his  feast  by  striking  off 
his  head  as  he  approached  the  banquet.  “ Had  he  murdered  my 
father,”  said  the  Saladin  to  Eichard  Coeur  de  Lion,  “ and  after- 
wards partaken  of  my  bowl  and  cup,  not  a hair  of  his  head  could 
have  been  injured  by  me.” 

In  this  case  it  was  not  the  host  sparing  the  guest,  it  was  not 
Conrad  de  Montserat  partaking  of  the  bowl  and  the  cup  of  Saladin, 
but  it  was  the  guest  who  had  partaken  of  the  hospitality  of  the 
host  who  betrajud  his  benefactor,  and  in  doing  it  represented 
the  United  States  of  America  in  the  Philippines. 

Mr.  President,  the  story  of  what  has  been  called  the  water 
torture  has  been,  in  part,  told  by  other  Senators.  I have  no  incli- 
nation to  repeat  the  story.  I can  not  help  believing  that  not  a 
twentieth  part  of  it  has  yet  been  told.  I get  letters  in  large  num- 
bers from  officers,  or  the  friends  of  officers,  who  repeat  what  they 
tell  me,  all  testifying  to  these  cruelties.  And  yet  as  in  the  case 
5298 


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cited  by  the  Senator  from  Georgia  [Mr.  Bacon]  the  other  day  the 
officer,  or  the  officer's  friends  or  kindred,  -who  send  the  letters  to  me, 
send  them  under  a strict  injunction  of  secrecy.  Other  ^nators  tell 
me  they  have  a like  experience.  These  brave  officers,  ■who  -would 
go  to  the  cannon’s  mouth  for  honor,  who  never  flinch  in  battle, 
flinch  before  what  they  deem  the  certain  ruin  of  their  prospects 
in  life  if  they  give  the  evidence  which  they  tliink  would  be  dis- 
tasteful to  their  superiors.  I do  not  undertake  to  judge  of  this 
matter.  Other  Senators  can  judge  as  well  as  lean.  The  Ameri- 
can people  can  do  it  better. 

I suppose,  Mr.  President,  that  those  of  us  who  are  of  English 
descent  like  to  think  that  the  race  from  which  we  come  ■will  com- 
pare favorably  with  most  others  in  the  matter  of  humanity.  Yet 
history  is  full  of  the  terrible  cruelties  committed  by  Englishmen 
when  men  of  other  races  refused  to  submit  to  their  authority.  I 
think  my  friends  who  seek  to  extenuate  this  water  torture,  or  to 
apologize  for  it,  may  perhaps  hke  to  look  at  the  precedent  of  the 
dealings  with  the  Insh  rebels  in  1799. 

In  Howell’s  State  Trials  there  -will  be  foimd  the  proceedings  in 
a suit  by  Mr.  Wright  against  James  Judkin  Fitzgerald,  a sheriff, 
who  ordered  a citizen  to  be  flogged  for  the  purpose  of  extorting 
information.  I believe  50  lashes  were  administered  and  then  50 
more  by  Fitzgerald,  and  in  many  other  cases  the  same  course  was 
taken.  It  was  -wholly  to  extract  information,  as  this  water  tor- 
ture has  been  to  get  information,  Fitzgerald,  the  sheriff,  told  his 
own  story.  He  pointed  out  the  necessity  of  his  system  of  terror. 
He  said  he  got  one  man  he  had  flogged  to  confess  that  the  plain- 
tiff was  a secretary  of  the  United  Hishmen,  and  this  information 
he  could  not  get  from  him  before;  that  Mr.  Wright  himself  had 
offered  to  confess,  but  his  memory  had  been  so  impaired  by  the 
flogging  that  he  could  not  command  the  faculty  of  recollection. 
Notwithstanding  he  had  by  the  terror  of  his  name  and  the  sever- 
ity of  his  flogging  succeeded  most  astonishingly,  particularly  in 
one  instance,  where,  by  the  flogging  of  one  man,  he  and  30  others 
acknowledged  themselves  United  Irishmen. 

Now,  that  was  abundantly  proved;  and  the  sheriff  who  had 
tortured  and  flogged  these  men  who  were  only  fighting  that  Ire- 
land should  not  be  ruled  without  the  consent  of  the  governed 
had  the  effrontery  to  ask  for  an  act  of  indemnity  from  the 
House  of  Commons  against  the  damages  which  had  been  re- 
cover(?il  against  him,  and  that  claim  found  plenty  of  advocates. 
The  ministry  undertook  to  extenuate  the  action  of  this  monster 
by  citing  the  cruelties  which  the  Irish  people  had  inflicted  in 
their  turn,  and  by  sajmg  that  very  material  discoveries  were 
made  relative  to  concealed  arms  as  the  result  of  these  tortures. 
The  defenders  of  the  administration  said  the  most  essential 
sei’vice  had  been  rendered  to  the  State  and  to  the  country  by 
Mr.  Fitzgerald.  The  attorney-general  trusted  the  House  would 
cheerfully  accede  to  the  prayer  of  the  petition.  Mr.  Wright, 
the  man  who  had  been  tortured,  was  a man  of  excellent  char- 
acter and  education,  and  a teacher  of  the  French  language.  As 
soon  as  he  knew  there  were  charges  against  him  he  went  to 
the  house  of  the  defendant  to  give  himself  up  and  demand  a trial. 
I will  not  take  the  time  of  the  Senate  to  read  the  debates.  The 
argument  for  the  Government  would  do  very  well  for  some  of 
the  arguments  we  have  heard  here,  and  the  arguments  we  have 
heard  here  would  have  done  very  well  there.  The  House  passed 
5298 


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a general  bill  to  indemnify  all  sheriffs  and  magistrates  who  had 
acted  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion  in  a way  not  warranted 
by  law,  and  to  secure  them  against  actions  at  law  for  so  doing. 
The  sole  question  at  stake  was  the  right  of  torture  to  extort  infor- 
mation. The  bill  passed  the  House,  and  afterwards  Fitzgerald 
got  a considerable  pension,  and  was  created  a baronet  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

Now,  I agree  that  this  precedent,  so  far  as  it  may  be  held  to 
have  set  an  example  for  what  has  been  done  in  the  Philippine 
Islands,  may  be  cited  against  me.  I cite  it  only  to  show  that  such 
things  are  inevitable  when  you  undertake  by  brute  force  to  re- 
duce to  subjection  an  unwilling  people,  and  that,  therefore,  when 
you  enter  upon  that  undertaking  you  yourselves  take  the  respon- 
sibility for  everthing  that  follows. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  said  that  these  horrors  which  never  would 
have  come  to  the  public  knowledge  had  not  the  Senate  ordered 
this  investigation,  were  rmknown  to  our  authorities  at  home.  I 
hope  arrd  believe  they  were  unkrrown  to  the  War  Department.  I 
know  they  were  rmknown  to  President  Roosevelt,  and  I Imow  they 
were  rmknown  to  President  McKinley.  But  I can  not  think,  per- 
haps I am  skeptical,  that  the  recent  declaration  of  that  honorable 
gentleman,  the  Secretary  of  War,  made  on  a memorable  occasion, 
that  the  war  on  our  part  has  been  conducted  with  imexampled 
humanity,  will  be  accepted  by  his  cormtrymen. 

Let  us  not  be  diverted  from  the  true  issue.  We  are  not  tailring 
of  retaliation.  We  are  not  talking  of  the  ordinary  brutalities  of 
war.  We  are  not  talking  about  or  inquiring  into  acts  of  ven- 
geance committed  in  the  heat  of  battle.  We  are  talking  about  tor- 
tm-e,  torture — cold-blooded,  deliberate,  calculated  torture;  tortui-e 
to  extort  information.  Claverhouse  did  it  to  the  Scotch  Covenant- 
ers with  the  boot  and  thumb-screw.  It  has  never  since  till  now  been 
done  by  a man  who  spoke  English  except  in  Ireland . The  Spanish 
inquisition  did  it  with  the  slow  fire  and  the  boiling  oil.  It  is  said 
that  the  water  torture  was  borrowed  from  Spain.  I am  quite  ready 
to  believe  it.  The  men  who  make  the  inquiry  are  told  that  they 
are  assailing  the  honor  of  the  American  Army.  How  do  the  de- 
fenders of  the  American  Army  meet  the  question?  * By  denying 
the  fact?  No.  By  saying  that  the  offenders  have  been  detected 
and  punished  by  military  power?  Some  of  these  facts  were  re- 
ported to  the  War  Department  more  than  a year  ago.  So  far  as 
I can  find  there  have  been  but  two  men  tided  for  torture  to  ex- 
tort information.  They  were  two  officers  who  hung  up  men  by 
the  thumbs,  and  they  were  found  guilty.  The  general  officer 
who  approved  the  finding  said  “that  they  had  dishonored  and  de- 
graded the  American  Army,”  and  then  they  were  sent  back  to 
their  command  with  a reprimand.  I agree  with  the  Senator  from 
Wisconsin  that  the  men  who  have  stolen,  and  committed  assaults 
for  the  gratification  of  brutal  lusts  have  been  punished,  and  pun- 
ished severely. 

My  honorable  friend  from  Wisconsin  [Mr.  Spooner]  said  some- 
thing about  this  matter  the  other  day.  That  is  the  only  case  of 
a punishment  to  be  foimd  in  our  records  so  far  as  I have  seen 
them.  I agree  with  my  friend  from  Wisconsin  that  the  men  who 
have  stolen  and  committed  assaults  for  the  gratification  of  brutal 
lusts  have  been  punished,  and  punished  severely,  but  what  we  are 
talking  about  is  torture. 

Mr.  SPOONER.  Did  I say  anything  about  the  number? 

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26 


Mr.  HOAR.  The  Senator  said  there  were  two  or  three  hundred 
cases,  quoting  the  record  before  him. 

Mr.  CARMACK.  Was  it  not  the  Senator  from  Iowa  [Mr. 
Dolliver]? 

Mr.  HOAR.  Ho;  it  was  the  Senator  from  Wisconsin,  unless 
my  memory  deceives  me.  I will  change  it  if  I am  mistaken,  but 
I think  I am  not  mistaken. 

We  are  talking  about  torture  committed  in  the  open  day  by 
men  who  were  not  drunk,  but  sober:  men  who  had  not  just  come 
out  of  battle,  but  torture  for  the  purpose  of  getting  information, 
on  which,  according  to  one  of  this  committee,  the  tribunals  acted. 

What  we  are  talking  about  is  the  torture  committed  in  the 
presence  of  numerous  witnesses  for  the  purpose  of  extorting  in- 
formation, and  orders  from  high  authority  to  depopulate  whole 
districts,  and  to  slay  all  inhabitants,  including  all  boys  over  10 
years  old. 

Is  it  denied  that  these  things  have  been  done?  Is  it  denied  that 
although  you  are  still  on  the  threshold  of  this  inquiry,  and  have 
only  called  such  witnesses  as  you  happen  to  find  10,000  miles 
away  from  the  scene,  that  these  things  have  been  proved  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  majority  of  the  committee,  and  that  no  man 
has  yet  been  punished,  although  they  were  going  on  considerably 
more  than  a year  ago?  Now,  how  do  oiir  friends  who  seek,  I will 
not  say  to  defend,  but  to  extenuate  them,  deal  with  the  honor  of 
the  American  Army?  Why,  they  come  into  the  Senate  and  say 
that  there  have  been  other  cruelties  and  barbarities  and  atrocities 
in  war.  When  these  American  soldiers  and  officers  are  called  to 
the  bar  oirr  friends  summon  Nero  and  Torquemada  and  the  Span- 
ish inquisition  and  the  sheeted  and  ghostly  leaders  of  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan  and  put  them  by  their  side.  That  is  the  way  you  de- 
fend the  honor  of  the  American  Army.  It  is  the  first  time  the 
American  soldier  was  put  into  such  company  by  the  men  who 
have  undertaken  his  defense. 

It  has  been  shown,  I think,  in  the  investigation  now  going  on 
that  the  secretary  of  the  province  of  Batangas  declared  that  one- 
third  of  the  300,000  of  the  population  of  that  province  have  died 
within  two^ears — 100,000  men  and  women. 

The  Boston  Journal,  an  eminent  Republican  paper  and  a most 
able  supporter  of  the  imperialistic  policy,  printed  on  the  3d  of 
May,  1901,  an  interview  with  Gen.  James  M.  Bell,  given  to  the 
New  York  Times — not  the  General  Bell  who  has  been  discussed 
here,  but  Gen.  James  M.  Bell  is  his  name,  an  officer  who  came 
back  from  the  Philippines  in  May,  1901. 

Mr.  SPOONER.  James  F.  Bell  is  the  one  there  now. 

Mr.  LODGE.  James  Franklin  Bell. 

IMr.  HOAR.  This  one  is  James  M.  Bell,  unless  I have  the  in- 
itials wrong.  I have  taken  great  pains  to  make  inquiry.  I have 
heard  from  the  man  to  whom  the  interview  was  given,  a news- 
paper correspondent  of  high  character,  and  I have  applied  to  the 
gentlemen  of  the  Boston  Journal  to  know  if  they  ever  heard  it  con- 
tradicted. He  said  in  May,  1901,  and  he  advocated  the  policy  in 
the  interview,  too,  that  one-sixth  of  the  natives  of  Luzon  have 
either  been  killed  or  have  died  of  the  dengue  fever  in  the  last 
iwo  years.  Now,  what  is  the  population  of  Luzon?  It  is  about 
3,000,000,  is  it  not? 

Mr.  ALLISON.  That  or  thereabouts. 

Mr.  HOAR.  Then  one-sixth  is  500,000. 

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I suppose  that  this  dengue  fever  and  the  sickness  which  depopu- 
lated Batangas  is  the  dii-ect  result  of  the  war,  and  comes  from 
the  condition  of  starvation  and  bad  food  which  the  war  has 
caused.  The  other  provinces  have  not  been  heard  from.  If  this 
be  true  we  have  caused  the  death  of  more  human  beings  in  the 
Philippines  than  we  have  caused  to  our  enemies,  including  in- 
surgents in  the  ten-ible  civil  war,  in  all  oui-  other  wars  put  to- 
gether, The  general  adds  that — 

the  loss  of  life  by  killing  alone  has  been  very  CTeat,  but  I think  not  one  man 
has  been  slain  except  where  his  death  served  the  legitimate  purposes  of  war. 
It  has  been  necessary  to  adopt  what  in  other  countries  would  probably  be 
thought  harsh  measures,  for  the  Filipino  is  tricky  and  crafty  and  has  to  be 
fought  in  his  own  way. 

I have  made  careful  inquiry  and  I am  satisfied  that  this  inter- 
view is  genuine.  Now,  all  this  is  because  you  will  not  tell  what 
you  mean  to  do  in  the  future,  as  I understand  it. 

Where  did  this  order  to  make  Samar  a howling  wilderness 
originate?  The  responsibility  unquestionably,  according  to  the 
discipline  of  armies  in  the  field,  rests  with  the  highest  authority 
from  which  it  came. 

We  used  to  talk,  some  of  us,  about  the  horrors  of  Anderson- 
ville,  and  other  things  that  were  dona  during  the  civil  war.  We 
hope,  all  of  us,  never  to  hear  them  mentioned  again.  But  is  there 
anything  in  them  worse  than  that  which  an  officer  of  high  rank 
in  the  Army,  vouched  for  by  a Senator  on  this  floor,  from  per- 
sonal knowledge,  as  a man  of  the  highest  honor  and  veracity, 
writes  about  the  evils  of  these  reconceutrado  camps  in  the  Phil- 
ippine Islands?  Now  all  this  cost,  all  these  young  men  gone  to 
their  graves,  all  these  wrecked  lives,  all  this*  national  dishonor, 
the  repeal  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  overthrow  of 
the  principle  on  which  the  Monroe  doctrine  was  placed  by  its 
author,  the  devastation  of  provinces,  the  shooting  of  captives,  the 
torture  of  prisoners  and  of  unarmed  and  peaceful  citizens,  the  hang- 
ing men  up  by  the  thumbs,  the  carloads  of  maniac  soldiers  that 
you  bring  home  are  all  because  you  would  not  tell  and  vnll  not 
teU  now  whether  you  mean  in  the  future  to  stand  on  the  princi- 
ples which  you  and  your  fathers  alwa3's  declared  in  the  past. 

The  Senator  from  Ohio  saj’s  it  is  not  wise  to  declare  what  we 
will  do  at  some  future  time.  Mr.  President,  we  do  not  ask  you  to 
declare  what  you  will  do  at  some  future  time.  We  ask  you 
to  declare  an  eternal  principle  good  at  the  present  time  and  good 
at  all  times.  We  ask  j ou  to  reaffirm  it , because  the  men  most  clam- 
orous in  support  of  what  juu  are  doing  deny  it.  That  principle, 
if  you  act  upon  it,  prevents  you  from  crushing  out  a weak  nation, 
because  of  your  fancied  interest  now  or  hereafter.  It  prevents 
you  from  undertaking  to  judge  what  institutions  are  fit  for 
other  nations  on  the  poor  plea  that  yon  are  the  strongest.  We 
are  asking  you  at  least  to  go  no  further  than  to  declare  what 
you  would  not  do  now  or  hereafter,  and  the  reason  for  declaring 
it  is  that  half  of  j'ou  declare  you  will  hold  this  people  in  subjec- 
tion and  the  other  half  on  this  matter  are  dumb.  You  declared 
what  you  would  not  do  at  some  future  time  when  yon  all  voted 
that  you  would  not  take  Cuba  against  the  will  of  her  people,  did 
you  not?  We  ask  you  to  declare  not  at  what  moment  you  will 
get  out  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  but  only  on  what  eternal  prin- 
ciple you  will  act,  in  them  or  out  of  them.  Such  declarations  are 
made  in  all  history.  They  are  made  in  every  important  treaty 
between  nations. 

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28 


The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  itself  but  a declaration 
of  what  this  country  will  do  and  what  it  will  not  do  in  all  future 
times.  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  if  it  have  the  practical 
meaning  it  lias  had  for  a hundred  years,  is  a declaration  of  what 
this  country  would  do  through  all  future  times.  The  Monroe 
Doctrine,  to  which  sixteen  republics  south  of  us  owe  their  life  and 
their  safety,  was  a declaration  to  mankind  of  what  we  would  do 
in  all  future  time.  Among  all  the  shallow  pretenses  of  imperial- 
ism this  statement  that  we  will  not  say  what  we  will  do  in  the 
future  is  the  most  shallow  of  all.  Was  there  ever  such  a flimsy 
pretext  flaunted  in  the  face  of  the  American  people  as  that  of  gen- 
tlemen who  say.  If  any  other  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth  or 
all  other  nations  together  attempt  to  overthrow  the  independence 
of  any  people  to  the  south  of  us  in  this  hemisphei'e,  we  will  flght 
and  preveiit  them,  and  at  the  same  time  think  it  dishonorable 
to  declare  whether  we  will  ever  overthrow  the  independence  of 
a weaker  nation  in  another  hemisphere. 

If  we  take  your  view  of  it  we  have  cruSied  out  the  only  repub- 
lic in  Asia  and  put  it  under  our  heel  and  we  are  now  at  war  with 
the  only  Christian  people  in  the  East.  Even,  as  I said,  the  Sena- 
tor from  Ohio  admits  they  are  a people,  he  only  says  there  are 
several  peoples  and  not  one,  as  if  the  doctrine  that  one  people  has 
no  right  to  buy  sovereignty  over  another,  or  to  rule  another 
against  its  will,  did  not  apply  in  the  plural  number.  You  can 
not  crush  out  an  unwilling  people,  or  buy  sovereignty  over  them, 
or  treat  them  as  spoils  of  conquest,  or  booty  of  battle  in  the  singu- 
lar, or  at  retail,  but  you  have  a perfect  right  to  do  it  by  whole- 
sale. Suppose  there  are  several  peoples  in  the  Philippines.  They 
have  population  enough  to  make  a hundred  and  twelve  States  of 
the  size  of  Rhode  Island  or  Delaware  when  they  adopted  the  Con- 
stitution. 

I suppose,  according  to  this  modern  doctrine,  that  if,  when  the 
Holy  Alliance  threatened  to  reduce  the  colonies  which  had  thrown 
off  the  yoke  of  Spain  in  South  America,  not  a wit  more  com- 
pletely than  the  Philippine  people  had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of 
Spain  in  Asia,  if  they  had  undertaken  to  subdue  them  all  at  once, 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  James  Monroe  would  have  held  their 
peace  and  would  at  least  have  said  it  was  not  wise  to  say  what  we 
would  do  in  the  future.  If  we  had  the  right  to  protect  nascent 
republics  from  the  tyranny  of  other  people  and  to  declare  that 
we  would  do  it  in  the  future,  and  if  need  be  would  encounter  the 
whole  continent  of  Europe  single-handed  in  that  case,  is  it  any 
loss  fitting  to  avow  that  we  will  protect  such  peoples  from  our- 
selves? How  is  it  that  these  gentlemen  v/ho  will  not  tell  you 
what  they  will  do  in  the  future  in  regard  to  the  Philippine  Islands 
were  so  eager  and  greedy  to  tell  you  what  they  would  do  and 
what  they  would  not  do  in  the  case  of  Cuba  when  we  first  declared 
war  on  Spain?  You  can  make  no  distinction  between  these  two 
cases  except  by  having  a motive,  which  I do  not  for  one  moment 
impute,  that  when  you  made  war  upon  Spain  you  were  afraid  of 
Europe,  if  you  did  not  make  the  declaration. 

These  people  are  given  to  us  as  children,  to  lead  them  out  of 
their  childhood  into  manhood.  They  were  docile  and  affection- 
ate in  the  beginning.  But  they  needed  j^our  kindness  and  justice, 
and  a respect  in  them  for  the  rights  we  claimed  for  ourselves,  and 
ihe  rights  we  had  declared  always  were  inherent  in  all  mankind. 
You  preferred  force  to  kindness,  and  power  to  justice,  and  war  to 
peace,  and  pride  to  generosity. 


29 


Yon  said  yon  vronld  not  treat  \vith  a man  -Rnth  aims  in  his 
hands.  Yon  have  come,  instead,  to  tortnre  him  ivhen  he  -was  nn- 
aimed  and  defenseless.  Yet  yon  said  you  vronld  make  his  conduct 
the  measure  of  your  oivn;  that  if  he  lied  to  yon,  yon  would  lie 
to  him;  that  if  he  were  cruel  to  you,  yon  would  he  cniel  to  him; 
that  if  he  were  a savage,  yon  would  he  a savage  also.  Yon  held 
an  attitude  toward  him  which  yon  hold  to  no  strong  or  to  no 
civilized  power.  Y'on  decorate  an  officer  for  the  capture  of 
Agninaldo  by  treachery,  and  the  next  week  ratify  The  Hague  con- 
vention and  denounce  such  action,  and  classify  it  with  poisoning 
and  breaking  of  faith. 

Yon  tell  ns,  Mr.  President,  that  the  Philippine  people  have 
practiced  some  cruelties  themselves.  The  investigation  has  not 
yet  gone  far  enough  to  enable  you  to  tell  which  side  begun  these 
atrocities.  One  case  which  one  of  the  members  of  the  majority 
of  the  committee  told  the  Senate  the  other  day  was  well  estab- 
lished by  proving  that  it  occurred  long  before  April,  1901,  and 
was  so  published,  far  and  wide,  in  the  press  of  this  country  at 
that  time.  I do  not  learn  tiiat  there  was  any  attempt  to  investi- 
gate it,  either  by  the  War  Department  or  by  Congress,  mitil  the 
beginning  of  the  present  session  of  Congress.  But  suppose  they 
did  begin  it.  Such  things  are  quite  likely  to  occur  when  wealmess 
is  fighting  for  its  lights  against  strength.  Is  their  conduct  any 
excuse  for  ours?  The  Philippine  people  is  but  a baby  in  the  hands 
of  our  Republic.  The  yoimg  atldete,  the  giant,  the  Hercules,  the 
Titan,  forces  a fight  upon  a boy  10  years  old  and  then  blames 
the  little  fellow  because  he  hits  below  the  belt.  , 

I see  that  my  enthusiastic  friend  from  North  Carolina  seeks  to 
break  the  force  of  these  revelations  by  saying  that  they  are  only 
what  some  Americans  are  wont  to  do  at  home.  It  is  benevolent 
assimilation  over  again.  It  is  just  what  the  junior  Senator  from 
Indiana  predicted.  He  thought  we  should  conduct  affairs  in  the 
Philippine  Islands  so  admirably  that  we  should  pattern  our  do- 
mestic administration  on  that  model.  But  did  I understand  that 
the  Senator  from  North  Carolina  proposes,  if  his  charge  against 
the  Democrats  there  is  true,  to  make  North  Carolina  a howling 
wilderness,  or  to  burn  populous  towns  of  10,000  people,  to  get  the 
people  of  North  Carolina  into  reconcentration  camps,  and  to  slay 
every  male  child  over  10  years  old?  I know  nothing  about  the 
timth  of  the  Senator's  charges.  They  have  never  been  investi- 
gated by  the  Senate  so  far.  We  had  some  painful  investigations 
years  ago  by  committees  in  this  body  and  of  the  other  "House, 
notably  one  of  which  the  senior  Senator  from  Colorado  was  chair- 
man. But  I never  heard  that  you  undertook  to  apply  to  Ameri- 
cans the  methods  which,  if  not  justified,  at  least  are  sought  to 
be  extenuated,  in  the  Philippine  Islands. 

Mr.  President,  if  the  stories  which  come  to  me  in  private  from 
officers  of  the  Army  and  from  the  kindred  and  friends  of  sol- 
diers are  to  be  tnisted;  if  the  evidence  which  seems  to  be  just 
beginning  before  the  Senate  Committee  can  be  trusted,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  conduct  of  Spain  in  Cuba  worse  than  the  conduct 
of  Americans  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  If  this  ertdence  be  true, 
and  nobody  is  as  yet  ready  to  deny  it,  and  Spain  were  strong 
enough,  she  would  have  the  right  to-morrow  to  wrest  the  Philip- 
pine Islands  from  our  grasp  on  grounds  as  good,  if  not  better, 
than  those  which  justified  us  when  we  made  war  upon  her.  The 
United  States  is  a strong  and  powerful  country — the  strojigest 
and  most  powerful  on  earth,  as  we  love  to  think.  But  it  is  the 
5298 


30 


first  time  in  the  history  of  this  people  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years  when  we  had  to  appeal  to  strength  and  not  to  the  righteous- 
ness of  our  cause  to  maintain  our  position  in  a great  debate  of 
justice  and  liberty. 

Gentlemen  tell  us  that  the  Filipinos  are  savages,  that  they 
have  inflicted  torture,  that  they  have  dishonored  our  dead  and 
outraged  the  living.  That  very  likely  may  be  true.  Spain  said 
the  same  thing  of  the  Cubans.  We  have  made  the  same  charges 
against  our  ovm  counti’j-men  in  the  disturbed  days  after  the  war. 
The  reports  of  committees  and  the  evidence  in  the  documents  in 
our  library  are  full  of  them.  But  who.ever  heard  before  of  an 
American  gentleman,  or  an  American,  who  took  as  a rule  for  his 
own  conduct  the  condiict  of  his  antagonist,  or  who  claimed  that 
the  Republic  should  act  as  savages  Ijecause  she  had  savages  to 
deal  with?  I had  supposed,  Mr.  President,  that  the  question, 
whether  a gentleman  shall  lie  or  murder  or  torture,  depended  on 
his  sense  of  his  ovm  character,  and  not  on  his  opinion  of  his 
victim.  Of  all  the  miserable  sophistical  shifts  wMch  have  at- 
tended this  wretched  business  from  the  beginning,  there  is  none 
more  miserable  than  this. 

You  knew — men  are  held  to  know  what  they  ought  to  know  in 
morals  and  in  the  conduct  of  States — and  you  knew  that  this  peo- 
ple would  resist  you;  you  knew  you  were  to  have  a war;  you  knew 
that  if  they  were  civilized,  so  far  as  they  were  civilized  and  like 
you,  the  war  would  be  conducted  after  the  fashion  of  civilized 
warfare,  and  that  so  far  as  they  were  savage  the  war  would  be 
conducted  on  their  part  after  the  fashion  of  savage  warfare;  and 
you  knew  also  that  if  they  resisted  and  held  out,  their  soldiers 
would  be  tempted  to  do  what  they  have  done,  and  would  yield  to 
that  temptation. 

And  I tell  you,  Mr.  President,  that  if  you  do  not  disregard  the 
lessons  of  human  nature  thus  far,  and  do  not  retrace  your  steps 
and  set  an  example  of  another  conduct,  you  will  have  and  those 
who  follow  you  will  have  a like  experience  hereafter.  You  may 
pacify  this  country  on  the  surface;  you  may  make  it  a solitude, 
and  call  it  peace;  you  may  burn  towns;  yoii  may  exterminate 
populations;  you  may  kill  the  children  or  the  boys  over  10,  as 
Herod  slew  the  firstborn  of  the  Israelites.  But  the  volcano  will 
be  there.  You  will  not  settle  this  thing  in  a generation  or  in  a 
centiiry  or  in  ten  centuries,  until  it  is  settled  right.  It  never 
■wdll  be  settled  right  until  you  look  for  your  counselors  to  George 
Washington  and  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Quincy  Adams  and 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  not  to  the  reports  of  the  War  Department. 

There  is  much  more  I should  like  to  say,  but  I have  spoken  too 
long  already.  I have  listened  to  what  many  gentlemen  have 
said — gentlemen  whom  I love  and  honor — with  profound  sorrow. 
They  do  over  again  in  the  Senate  what  Burke  complained  of  to 
the  House  of  Commons. 

In  order  to  prove  that  the  Americans  have  no  right  to  their  liberties  we 
are  every  day  endeavoring  to  subvert  the  maxims  which  preserve  the  whole 
spirit  of  our  own.  To  prove  that  the  Americans  ought  not  to  be  free  we  are 
obliged  to  depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself;  and  we  never  seem  to  gain 
a paltry  advantage  over  them  in  debate  without  attacking  some  of  those 
principles  or  deriding  some  of  those  feelings  for  which  our  ancestors  have 
shed  their  blood. 

I wish  to  cite  another  weighty  maxim  from  Burke: 

America,  gentlemen  say,  is  a noble  object — ^it  is  an  object  well  worth 
fighting  for.  Cea-tainly  it  is,  if  fighting  a people  be  the  best  way  of  gaining 
them.  Gentlemen  in  this  respect  will  be  led  to  their  choice  of  means  by 
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31 


their  complesions  and  their  hahits.  Those  who  understand  the  military  art 
will  of  conrse  have  some  predilection  for  it.  Those  who  wield  the  thunder 
of  the  state  may  have  more  confidence  in  the  efiScacy  of  arms.  Bat  I con- 
fess, possibly  for  the  want  of  this  knowledge,  my  opinion  is  much  more  in 
favor  of  prudent  management  than  of  force — considering  force  not  as  an 
odious,  hut  a feeble  instrument,  for  preserving  a people  so  numerous,  so 
active,  so  growing,  so  spirited  as  this,  in  a profitable  connection  with  us. 

There  is  nothing — 

Says  Gibbon,  the  historian  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire — 

more  adverse  to  nature  and  reason  than  to  hold  in  obedience  remote  coun- 
tries and  foreign  nations  in  opposition  to  their  inclination  and  interest.  A 
torrent  of  barbarians  may  pass  over  the  earth,  hut  an  extensive  empire  must 
be  supported  by  a refined  system  of  policy  and  oppression;  in  the  center,  an 
absolute  power,  prompt  in  action  and  rich  in  resources;  a swift  and  easy 
communication  with  the  extreme  jjarts;  fortifications  to  check  the  first 
effort  of  rebellion;  a regular  administration  to  protect  and  punish;  and  a 
weU-discipiined  army  to  inspire  fear,  without  provoking  discontent  and 
despair. 

Lord  Elgin,  Governor-General  of  India  and  formerly  Governor- 
General  of  Canada,  vrell  known  and  highly  esteemed  in  the  United 
States,  declared  as  the  result  of  his  experience  in  the  East:  “ It 
is  a terrible  business,  however — this  living  among  inferior  races. 
I have  seldom  from  man  or  woman  since  I came  to  the  East  heard 
a sentence  which  was  reconcilable  with  the  hypothesis  that  Chris- 
tianity had  ever  come  into  the  world.  Detestation,  contempt, 
ferocity,  vengeance,  whether  Chinamen  or  Indians  he  the  ob.ject. 
One  moves  among  them  with  perfect  indifference,  treating  them 
not  as  dogs,  because  in  that  case  one  would  whistle  to  them  and 
pat  them,  hut  as  maebiues  with  which  one  can  have  no  commun- 
ion or  sjunpatby.  When  the  passions  of  fear  and  hatred  are  in- 
grafted on  this  indifiference,  the  result  is  frightful — an  absolute 
callousness  as  to  the  sufferings  of  the  objects  of  those  passions, 
which  must  be  witnessed  to  be  understood  and  believed.” 

The  glowing  narrative  of  Macaulay,  the  eloquence  of  Burke 
and  Sheridan  have  made  the  crimes  committed  in  India  under  the 
rule  of  Warren  Hastings  familiar  to  mankind.  Yet  I believe  the 
verdict  of  history  has  acquitted  Hastings,  as  the  tribunal  that  tried 
him  acquitted  him.  He  was  dismissed,  exculpated,  from  the  bar 
of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  decorated.  He  was  swoni  of  the  Privy 
Council  and  received  at  cofirt.  A large  purse  was  made  up  for 
him  by  the  East  India  Company.  Yet  no  man  doubts  the  truth 
of  Burke's  ten-ible  indictment.  He  was  acquitted  because  Eng- 
land, and  not  he,  was  the  criminal.  When  England  undertook  to 
assei*t  her  rule  in  India  what  followered  was  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  the  decision. 

Lord  Erskine,  the  foremost  advocate  who  ever  spoke  the  Eng- 
lish tongue  on  English  soil,  placed  with  xmerring  sagacity  the 
defense  of  Hastings  on  this  ground  alone.  He  admitted  that 
Hastings,  in  i*uling  India,  “may,  and  mnst, have  offended  against 
the  laws  of  God  and  nature.”  “If  he  WeXS  the  faithful  viceroy 
of  an  empire  wi-ested  in  blood  from  the  people  to  whom  God  and 
nature  had  given  it,  he  may  and  must  have  preserved  that  unjust 
dominion  over  timorous  and  abject  nations  by  a terrifying  snper- 
iority.”  “A  government  having  no  root  in  consent  or  affection, 
no  foxmdation  in  similarity  of  interests,  nor  support  from  any 
one  principle  which  cements  men  in  society  together  could  only 
be  upheld  by  alternate  stratagem  and  force.”  Erskine  adds:  “To 
be  governed  at  all,  they  must  be  governed  with  a rod  of  iron:  and 
oni-  empire  in  the  East  would  long  since  have  been  lost  to  Great 
6298 


32 


Britain  if  ci^^l  sltill  and  militarj’  prowess  had  not  nnited  their 
efforts  to  support  an  authority  which  Heaven  never  gave — by 
means  which  it  never  can  sanction.” 

Mr.  President,  this  is  the  eternal  law  of  human  nature.  You 
may  struggle  against  it,  you  may  try  to  escape  it,  you  may 
persuade  yourself  that  your  intentions  are  benevolent,  that  your 
yoke  will  be  easy  and  your  burden  will  be  light,  but  it  will 
assert  itself  again  and  again.  Government  without  the  consent 
of  the  governed — an  authority  which  Heaven  never  gave — can 
only  he  supported  by  means  which  Heaven  never  can  sanction. 

The  American  people  have  got  this  one  question  to  answer. 
Tliey  may  answer  it  now;  they  can  take  ten  years,  or  twenty 
years,  or  a generation,  or  a century  to  think  of  it.  But  it  will 
not  dovm.  They  must  answer  it  in  the  end — Can  you  lawfioUy 
buy  with  money,  or  get  by  brute  force  of  anns,  the  right  to  hold 
in  subjugation  an  unwilling  people,  and  to  impose  on  them  such 
constitution  as  yoii,  and  not  they,  think  best  for  them? 

We  have  answered  this  qiiestion  a good  many  times  in  the  past. 
The  fathers  answered  it  in  177C,  and  founded  the  Republic  upon 
their  answer,  which  has  been  the  corner  stone.  John  Quincy 
Adams  and  James  Monroe  answered  it  again  in  the  Monroe  doc- 
trine, which  John  Quincy  Adams  declared  was  only  the  doctrine 
of  the  consent  of  the  governed.  The  Republican  party  answered 
it  when  it  took  possession  of  the  forces  of  Government  at  the 
beginning  of  the  most  brilliant  period  in  all  legislative  history. 
Abraham  Lincoln  answered  it  when,  on  that  fatal  journey  to 
Washington  in  18G1,  he  announced  that  the  doctrine  of  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed  was  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  his  political 
creed,  and  declared,  with  prophetic  vision,  that  he  was  ready  to 
be  assassinated  for  it  if  need  be.  You  answered  it  again  your- 
selves when  you  said  that  Cuba,  who  had  no  more  title  than  the 
people  of  the  Philippine  Islands  had  to  their  independence,  of 
right  oiight  to  be  free  and  independent. 

The  question  will  be  answered  again  hereafter.  It  will  be  an- 
swered soberly  and  deliberately  and  quietly  as  the  American  peo- 
ple are  wont  to  answer  great  questions  of  duty.  It  will  be  an- 
swered, not  in  any  turbulent  assembly,  amid  shouting  and  clapping 
of  hands  and  stamping  of  feet,  where  men  do  their  thinking  with 
their  heels  and  not  with  their  brains.  It  will  be  answered  in  the 
churches  and  in  the  schools  and  in  the  colleges;  and  it  will  be 
answered  in  fifteen  million  American  homes,  and  it  will  be  an- 
swered as  it  has  always  been  ans^wered.  It  will  be  answered  right. 

A famous  orator  once  imagined  the  nations  of  the  world  unit- 
ing to  erect  a column  to  Jurispradence  in  some  stately  capital. 
Each  country  was  to  bring  the  name  of  its  great  jurist  to  be  in- 
scribed on  the  side  of  the  column,  wdth  a sentence  stating  what 
he  and  his  country  through  him  had  done  toward  establishing  the 
reign  of  law  in  justice  for  the  benefit  of  mankind. 

Rome  said,  “Here  is  Numa,  who  received  the  science  of  law 
from  the  nymph  Egeria  in  the  cavern  and  taught  its  message  to 
his  countrymen.  Here  is  Justinian,  w^ho  first  reduced  law  to_  a 
code,  made  its  precepts  plain,  so  that  all  mankind  could  read  it, 
and  laid  down  the  rules  which  should  govern  the  dealing  of  man 
with  man  in  every  transaction  of  life.” 

France  said,  “Here  is  D’Aguesseau,  the  gi’eat  chancellor,  to 
whose  judgment  seat  pilgrims  from  afar  were  wont  to  repair  to 
do  him  reverence.” 

5298 


England  said,  “ Here  is  Erskine,  wlio  made  it  safe  for  men  to 
print  the  truth,  no  matter  what  tyrant  might  dislike  to  read  it.” 
Virginia  said,  “ Here  is  IMarshall,  who  breathed  the  vital  princi- 
ple into  the  Constitution,  infused  into  it,  instead  of  the  letter  that 
killeth.  the  spirit  that  maketh  alive,  and  enabled  it  to  keep  State 
and  nation  each  in  its  appointed  bounds,  as  the  stars  abide  in  their 
courses.” 

I have  sometimes  fancied  that  we  might  erect  here  in  the  cap- 
ital of  the  country  a column  to  American  Liberty  which  alone 
might  rival  in  height  the  beautiful  and  simple  shaft  which  we 
have  erected  to  the  fame  of  the  Father  of  the  CSuntry.  I can 
fancy  each  generation  bringing  its  inscription,  which  should  recite 
its  own  contribution  to  the  great  structure  of  which  the  column 
should  be  but  the  sjunbol. 

The  generation  of  the  Puritan  and  the  Pilgrim  and  the  Hugue- 
not claims  the  place  of  honor  at  the  base.  ” I brought  the  torch 
of  Freedom  across  the  sea.  I cleared  the  forest.  I subdued  the 
savage  and  the  wild  beast.  I laid  in  Christian  liberty  and  law 
the  foundations  of  empire.” 

The  next  generation  says:  “ Wliat  my  fathers  founded  I builded. 
I left  the  seashore  to  penetrate  the  wilderness.  I planted  schools 
and  colleges  and  courts  and  churches.” 

Then  comes  the  generation  of  the  great  colonial  day.  “ I stood 
by  the  side  of  England  on  many  a hard-fought  field.  I helped 
humble  the  power  of  France.  I saw  the  lilies  go  down  before 
the  lion  at  Louisburg  and  Quebec.  I carried  the  cross  of  St. 
George  in  triumph  in  Martinique  and  the  Havana.  I knew  the 
stormy  pathways  of  the  ocean.  I followed  the  whale  from  the 
Arctic  to  the  Antarctic  seas,  among  tumbling  mountains  of  ice 
and  under  equinoctial  heat,  as  the  great  English  orator  said,  ‘No 
sea  not  vexed  by  my  fisheries ; no  climate  not  witness  to  my  toils.  ’ ’ ’ 
Then  comes  the  generation  of  the  Revolutionary  time.  “ I en- 
countered the  power  of  England.  I declared  and  won  the  Inde- 
pendence of  my  country.  I placed  that  declaration  on  the  eternal 
principles  of  justice  and  righteousness  which  all  mankind  have 
read,  and  on  which  all  mankind  will  one  day  stand.  I affirmed 
the  dignity  of  human  nature  and  the  right  of  the  people  to  govern 
themselves.  I devised  the  securities  against  popular  haste  and 
delusion  which  made  that  right  secure.  I created  the  Supreme 
Court  and  the  Senate.  For  the  first  time  in  history  I made  the 
right  of  the  people  to  govern  themselves  safe,  and  established  in- 
stitutions for  that  end  which  will  endure  forever.” 

The  next  generation  says,  I encountered  England  again.  I 
.indicated  the  right  of  an  American  ship  to  sail  the  seas  the  wide 
world  over  without  molestation.  I made  the  American  sailor  as 
safe  at  the  ends  of  the  earth  as  my  fathers  had  made  the  Ameri- 
can farmer  safe  in  his  home.  I proclaimed  the  Monroe  doctrine 
in  the  face  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  under  which  16  Republics  have 
joined  the  family  of  nations.  I filled  the  Western  Hemisphere 
with  Republics  from  the  Lakes  to  Cape  Horn,  each  controlling  its 
own  destiny  in  safety  and  in  honor.” 

Then  comes  the  next  generation : “ I did  the  mighty  deeds  which 
in  yonr  younger  years  you  saw  and  which  your  fathers  told.  I 
saved  the  Union.  I put  down  the  rebellion.  I freed  the  slave. 
I made  of  every  slave  a freeman,  and  of  every  freeman  a citizen, 
and  of  every  citizen  a voter.” 

Then  comes  another  who  did  the  great  work  in  peace,  in  which 
52S8 3 


34 


so  many  of  you  had  an  honorable  share:  “ I kept  the  faith.  1 
paid  the  debt.  I brought  in  conciliation  and  peace  instead  of 
war.  I secured  in  the  practice  of  nations  the  great  Doctrine  of 
Expatriation.  I devised  the  Homestead  system.  I covered  the 
prairie  and  the  plain  -with  happy  homes  and  with  mighty  States. 
I crossed  the  continent  and  joined  together  the  seas  with  my 
great  railroads.  I declared  the  manufacturing  independence  \>f 
America,  as  my  fathers  affirmed  its  political  independence.  I 
built  up  our  vast  domestic  commerce.  I made  my  country  the 
richest,  freest,  strongest,  happiest  peopleonthe  faceof  the  earth.” 
And  now  what  have  we  to  say?  4^at  have  we  to  say?  Are 
we  to  have  a place  in  that  honorable  company?  Must  we  engrave 
on  that  column,  “We  repealed  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
We  changed  the  Monroe  doctrine  from  a doctrine  of  eternal 
righteousness  and  justice,  resting  on  the  consent  of  the  governed, 
to  a doctrine  of  brutal  selfishness,  looking  only  to  our  own  ad- 
vantage. We  crushed  the  only  republic  in  Asia.  We  made  war 
on  the  only  Christian  people  in  the  East.  We  converted  a war 
of  glory  to  a war  of  shame.  We  vulgarized  the  American  flag. 
We  introduced  perfidy  into  the  practice  of  war.  We  inflicted 
torture  on  unarmed  men  to  extort  confession.  We  put  children 
to  death.  We  established  reconcentrado  camps.  We  devasted 
provinces.  We  baffled  the  aspirations  of  a people  for  liberty.” 
No,  Mr.  President.  Never!  Never!  Other  and  better  counsels 
will  yet  prevail.  The  hours  are  long  in  the  life  of  a great  peo- 
ple. The  irrevocable  step  is  not  yet  taken. 

Let  us  at  least  have  this  to  say:  We  too  have  kept  the  faith  of 
the  Fathers.  We  took  Cuba  by  the  hand.  We  delivered  her  from 
her  age-long  bondage.  We  welcomed  her  to  the  family  of  na- 
tions. W’e  set  mankind  an  example  never  beheld  before  of 
moderation  in  -victory.  We  led  hesitating  and  halting  Europe  to 
the  deliverance  of  their  beleaguered  ambassadors  in  China.  We 
marched  through  a hostile  country — a country  cruel  and  barbar- 
ous— without  anger  or  revenge.  We  retumed  benefit  for  injury, 
and  pity  for  cruelty.  We  made  the  name  of  America  beloved  in 
the  East  as  in  the  West.  We  kept  faith  with  the  Philippine 
people.  We  kept  faith  -with  our  own  history.  We  kept  our 
national  honor  unsullied.  The  flag  which  we  received  -without  a 
rent  we  handed  do-wn  without  a stain.  [Applause  on  the  floor 
and  in  the  galleries.] 

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